


Risky finds

by Hajinnie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Action, Age Difference, CEO, Drama, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, On the Run, Organized Crime, Private Investigators, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21981871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hajinnie/pseuds/Hajinnie
Summary: Journalist Kyungsoo is out to uncover the dirt behind CEO Park Chanyeol who recently bought out his family's entire farmland in the name of "business". Other than finding himself helplessly attracted to Chanyeol, Kyungsoo may not be the only one who is spying on the other.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 81
Kudos: 201





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a prompt from the 100years fest which I claimed. I do not claim ownership over the idea/prompt, only the fic which I wrote. 
> 
> \--
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hajinnie)  
> [CC](https://curiouscat.me/hajinnie)

“You are going to get us in a lot of trouble for this!” Junmyeon hissed, keeping his voice low as he ducked under the backseat of his own car, huddling his legs towards his chest.

“It’s fine. I told you I’ll be quick. Just shut up,” Kyungsoo retorted from the front seat, where he was ducking and trying to hide from view too.

Kyungsoo was snapping pictures with a camera lens specially dedicated for targets at a long-range, a necessity considering the career path he chose to put himself into as a journalist for a medium-sized publishing company.

Kyungsoo was currently doing a stakeout in Junmyeon’s MPV, which was parked in a parking lot outside a high-rise building that was known to house the office of “Sejun Corporations”, a privately-owned company that mainly operates a personal financing business alongside other smaller ventures.

While the field of journalism Kyungsoo was supposed to be doing had nothing to do with Sejun Corporations or their businesses, he had a personal motive and agenda to be doing this.

However, Kyungsoo’s had a specific target in mind and that was Park Chanyeol, the CEO of Sejun Corporations.

“Come on, man. I don’t want to get in trouble for this. I have a wife and kids to feed,” Junmyeon complained, putting his head between the seats to look at Kyungsoo attempting several positions to take pictures from inside the car without being discovered.

“Look, I’ll give you extra gas money for this and some pocket money for your kids’ allowance,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, looking back at Junmyeon, “Just let me borrow your car for a little longer.”

Junmyeon sighed, “I don’t know why I agreed to this. I know you were up to no good when you said you needed my help.”

“This is part of the job, okay,” Kyungsoo insisted, clicking on the shutter button rapidly, checking the storage capacity every now and then to make sure the photos were being saved.

“Nuh-uh,” Junmyeon retorted, “You were supposed to interview that newly debuted girl group so we could print the article and sell it to their fans for money. But instead, you’re staking out the CEO of a well known financing company. We could have been talking to pretty idols instead of being stuck here.”

“The financing company is just a front for them to ‘wash’ their money. They’re really loan sharks and deal with the crime underworld. Which is why I’m going to expose them,” Kyungsoo informed before quickly ducking to hide, “Oh shit, I think he saw me.”

“Who!?” Junmyeon rasped, “The CEO guy? If what you said about him being involved with the mafia is real, then we’re in serious trouble if he finds out you’re here! Why are you even doing this?”

“This is personal, Junmyeon,” Kyungsoo mentioned, going through his camera roll before peeking up above the window to see if the coast was clear to be taking more pictures, “He bought over my grandparents' farm and the entire region surrounding it and for what?”

“He’s a businessman, isn’t he? He’s probably going to hold onto it as an asset and then resell it to some other development company for a higher price in the future?” Junmyeon assumed.

“Pfft,” Kyungsoo snorted, “He probably has an ulterior motive to that and I can’t believe that my uncle would just so easily give up our ancestral land like that. I bet this Park Chanyeol guy extorted my uncle for the deal. I don’t think doing that is something removed from people like him.”

“Dude, when was the last time you even went to visit your uncle and ask the reason behind why he just sold off the land?” Junmyeon tried to reason.

“I visited him last Chuseok but that’s not the point, okay. My family has too much pride to just sell our land like that. It’s been in our family for generations and we won’t just give it up unless-,” Kyungsoo theorized.

“Yeah, whatever,” Junmyeon shrugged, “Just hurry up? I don’t want to be here any longer.”

“I’ll be done soon,” Kyungsoo almost snapped back, shaking his head as he resumed taking pictures of Chanyeol.

Park Chanyeol himself was exiting the front entrance of the building, walking down the steps down to the curb, where an expensive black sedan with fully tinted glasses was already waiting for him.

Once Chanyeol was inside the car, his driver spoke up, “Sir, there is an old rather beat-up silver SUV in the parking lot across from the street. Some of the security guards say that it has been there for hours now and that they can see two men inside there, where one of them has been taking pictures of you and the other people entering and leaving our building.”

“Oh,” Chanyeol pondered, smiling to himself as he looked at the time on his gold watch.

“Do you want me to send some men to check up on it?” The driver asked, looking back at Chanyeol through the rearview mirror.

Chanyeol straightened up his tie and the three-piece pinstriped suit he was wearing, “No need for that. They are no threat. It’s probably the usual journalist who has been spying on me for the past weeks. If they do prove to be a hassle, we’ll just deal with them accordingly. Just get me to my next meeting, Sehun.”

“Of course, sir,” Sehun, the driver nodded his head before shifting the gear out from idle and into drive.

Chanyeol chuckled, leaning an elbow against the window as he drew a circle on the glass around the image of Junmyeon’s SUV in the parking lot across the road from them.


	2. Pursuit (Part 1)

Although Kyungsoo was born and raised in a sub-district of Seoul and could hence consider himself a city boy, his father’s family hailed from a rural area in the North Jeolla province.

Almost every summer holiday until middle school, Kyungsoo was sent to stay with his uncle and grandparents on the family’s farm in the province, which in turn developed Kyungsoo’s attachment to the place.

In high school, Kyungsoo’s grandparents passed away one year within each other. Due to the ongoing global financial crisis at the time, running the farm was proven expensive and unprofitable.

Seeing no reason to keep it running, Kyungsoo’s uncle then chose to close up the farm and move to Seoul in search of a proper white-collar job, leaving the farm and its surrounding land- abandoned.

After high school, Kyungsoo went to college and later completed his military service. Now at twenty-five years old, it had been exactly eight years since Kyungsoo had even last gone back to the farmland his family used to own in North Jeolla.

It was two months ago when Kyungsoo went to visit his parents and heard in passing about his uncle selling the farmland to none other than a Park Chanyeol on behalf of Sejun Corporations.

Refusing to believe that his uncle would just let go of their ancestral land like that, Kyungsoo began digging up on the dirt regarding Park Chanyeol, suspecting that maybe some foul play at hand. Kyungsoo didn’t think that it made sense that Chanyeol or the company would be interested in their measly farmland.

What Kyungsoo found out was that Chanyeol was thirty-three years old, unmarried, had a master's degree in business from a prestigious overseas university and that he had become CEO of Sejun Corporations about five years ago following the passing of his father.

Apart from that, Kyungsoo knew next to nothing about this mysterious so-called CEO, to understand the motives behind why his family farmland was bought out in the first place.

Even through stakeouts and following Chanyeol around, Kyungsoo didn’t find any valuable information to help him in his personal agenda.

That was until Kyungsoo followed Chanyeol to an exclusive private nightclub a few weeks ago. Although Kyungsoo did not manage to enter the nightclub, he did manage to capture a few pictures of Chanyeol talking to someone outside.

It was only later when Kyungsoo was in the office and going through the pictures he took of Chanyeol, when a co-worker, Lee Taemin, who did investigative journalism, passed by his desk and noted that the man in the picture, whom Chanyeol was talking to, was suspected to be a high ranking member within an organized crime syndicate.

From there, it wasn’t hard for Kyungsoo to put two and two together to figure out that indeed, Chanyeol had dealings with the crime underworld, especially with the additional information he got from Taemin, who also benefitted in the pictures he took of Chanyeol.

Although, Kyungsoo still did not have enough information and was barely even scratching the surface when it came to his investigation on Chanyeol. He still needed to dig deeper and spend more time doing in-depth research before he could finally report about it.

Now, sitting alone at his desk past midnight on a Friday, in a deserted office, Kyungsoo cursed at his computer screen displaying the pictures of Chanyeol he took in secret, “That trash. He has no business in real estate but he still bought my family land. I don’t understand why but I will find out and expose that man as the scam he is. A Financing company, my ass.”

Kyungsoo glanced over at his phone screen which lit up to show a text notification from Junmyeon, reminding him to give the money as promised for using his car during the stakeout yesterday afternoon.

Junmyeon was just a dispatcher at the company, whose job was mainly to drive around the bosses and executives. But yet, he often found himself roped into Kyungsoo’s risqué endeavors.

Ignoring the text and wondering why Junmyeon was not even asleep yet at this time of the night, Kyungsoo’s eyes darted back to the computer screen as he rested his cheek on his palm.

There was a picture of Chanyeol standing outside the company’s building, pushing his dark hair back before he entered the car.

The picture was high definition enough for Kyungsoo to zoom in and notice that Chanyeol was biting his lower lip when he did that, for what reasons he didn’t know.

For more reasons Kyungsoo couldn’t explain too, he actually felt his groin area twitch and even stir at the picture of Chanyeol, who had no business looking so attractive.

Kyungsoo had long known that he was gay and interested in men. It was already hard being gay, harder when he found his supposed “enemy” to be attractive and his dick hardest at the thought of it alone.

**

About a week after staking out Chanyeol outside his office building in Junmyeon’s car, Kyungsoo fulfilled his promise to pay Junmyeon for the assistance and also bring the father of two out for dinner after work.

Kyungsoo withdrew about 150,000 won from the ATM outside the restaurant before going back inside to hand the money to Junmyeon, who was slurping on his noodles.

“This is 50,000 more than I asked for though,” Junmyeon noted, counting the money and handing Kyungsoo back the extra bill.

“I know,” Kyungsoo answered, “-I did say I’d give some extra for you to give your kids too. Just consider it as a gift from me to them.”

“Oh wow, thanks. You shouldn’t have when all I did was drive you around and let you use my car to stalk that CEO,” Junmyeon smiled gleefully, folding the bills before tucking it into the pocket of his trousers.

“Sure, no problem,” Kyungsoo lazily said, sipping from his glass of water, “Just tell the twins I said hi. Speaking of which, how’s the wife too?”

“All is good,” Junmyeon gave a thumbs up, “The café she opened with her sister is doing very well and your suggestion to advertise it online through social media has been doing us good too. The twins will be starting elementary school next spring so we have to save up some money for that, so the business is really helping us out.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Kyungsoo nodded, checking his phone for a brief moment before putting it back down on the table.

“Well, if you need my help again with that case of yours, just let me know. For a price of course,” Junmyeon offered.

Kyungsoo chuckled a bit, “I’ll let you know but for now, I think I won’t. He’ll get suspicious if he sees the same car stalking and waiting outside his building over and over.”

“You’re really still trying to pursue that case, aren’t you? Even with all the information you have with Park Chanyeol being somehow related to the mafia?” Junmyeon pointed to Kyungsoo with the chopsticks in his right hand.

Kyungsoo sighed, “You know me. I’m an all or nothing person. I won’t ever be satisfied until I can find out why my family’s farmland was really sold for. I don’t believe my uncle was so pressed for money and after all the promises he made to my grandparents to take care of the land, he wouldn’t just so easily let it go like that.”

“Well, if that’s what you say, I can’t stop you,” Junmyeon shrugged, “I just don’t want you to get in trouble though. The mafia isn’t something you’d want to deal with. I mean, you’re not even into these crimes and investigative journalism thing. You can get a lot of money by just taking pictures of celebrities and writing minimal effort articles on things such as the clothes they wore to the airport or the last type of food they were seen eating in public.”

“I know, I know,” Kyungsoo sighed, “I appreciate the concern. I promise I’ll be done with this whole Park Chanyeol and Sejun Corporations thing once I get to the bottom of it.”

“You better be,” Junmyeon reminded, pointing a finger at Kyungsoo this time.

Kyungsoo later parted ways with Junmyeon after dinner and went back home to his apartment, only to find his door handle loose and instantly coming apart the moment he even tried lightly tugging on it.

This was most definitely the signs of someone breaking into his apartment by forcing their way through dismantling the lock.

Without even thinking twice, Kyungsoo dropped his backpack down near the door and pulled his phone out, ready to call the police if he still saw the intruders inside his place.

Slowly, Kyungsoo pushed the door open and quickly reached for the light switch on the wall just beside the entryway.

When the lights came on, Kyungsoo was able to see more clearly that his small one-bedroom apartment was utterly thrashed and in a complete mess.

Kyungsoo checked under his bed, under the kitchen sink, and in his closet, making sure that the intruders had left and it was just him alone there.

Then, once Kyungsoo was sure that they had left, he started to look for things that were missing. It wasn’t surprising that the only things the intruders had taken with them were his computer, cameras, hard drive and some files from his desk.

Kyungsoo could only shake his head when he realized that the intruders were very likely Chanyeol’s men, who were there to take back all the data and pictures Kyungsoo had obtained on him.

After all, if they were really robbers, they would have certainly taken more valuable items such as Kyungsoo’s stash of money, his television and pricey personal belongings. The intruders clearly knew to target the items that contained information or data that could implicate Chanyeol.

But what made Kyungsoo even surer that this was Chanyeol’s doing was the large poster-sized picture hung up on the wall above the desk where his now stolen computer once was.

It wasn’t there before and the picture was that of Kyungsoo, taken secretly without his knowledge when he was exiting a coffee shop he usually frequented. Based on the clothes he wore in the picture, Kyungsoo knew it was recent too.

Kyungsoo chuckled dryly, pressing a hand to his forehead, thinking about the mess he had put himself into and how he was going to possibly retrieve all his data back from Chanyeol.

In a condominium somewhere that overlooked the Han River, Chanyeol was sitting at the edge of his bed, with the view of the landmark district glistening outside his floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows.

Chanyeol was smiling to himself as he went through the stored images on Kyungsoo’s camera; which his men had obtained from Kyungsoo’s apartment and subsequently handed over to him.

On the camera, there were pictures of idol group members, famous actors, some random animals, food, places and even that of Chanyeol’s which were taken from a distance.

But what caught Chanyeol’s interest the most was the picture of Kyungsoo taken candidly one time when Junmyeon was playing around with the camera.

“Cute,” Chanyeol said to himself, with a smirk on his face.

**

While the break-in incident did not stop Kyungsoo from continuing to pursue Chanyeol and exposing his dealings with the criminal underworld, it certainly did scare him a bit and Kyungsoo wasn’t even brave to tell Junmyeon about it yet.

Knowing the kind of person Junmyeon was and how much he had been advising Kyungsoo against it, Kyungsoo could guess that Junmyeon would probably have an “I told you so” rant if he ever said anything.

For the time being and while waiting for the dust to settle, Kyungsoo temporarily moved in back with his parents who lived at least an hour away from his workplace.

While Kyungsoo’s apartment was much closer to the office, he would have to suck it up and deal with the daily long commute, especially when considering that someone like Chanyeol was after his ass.

Kyungsoo had lied to his parents that there was a gas leak in his apartment, being the excuse he used when he suddenly showed up at their front door in the middle of the night with a bag of his clothes. 

While he was there too, Kyungsoo took the opportunity to ask his father even more questions regarding their farmland and why his brother, Kyungsoo’s uncle, had sold it off.

In the evenings, Kyungsoo would try to hurry back as fast as he could, despite the long commute and the sometimes irregular working hours depending on what the company expected him to write and cover about.

Kyungsoo needed to be home after his father was done with work and before he went to sleep, just so he could sit his father down and talk.

That evening, about three days since Chanyeol had some men break into his apartment, Kyungsoo finally managed to arrive home early enough while his father was still awake.

Kyungsoo’s father was sitting on the couch in the living room, watching television and already in his pajamas, just about ready to go to bed.

Seeing that, Kyungsoo scurried to the spare room he was sleeping in and quickly changed into house clothes before dashing back into the living room and plopping himself down on the empty space on the couch.

“You’re home,” Kyungsoo’s father noted, glancing over at him on the other end of the couch.

“Yes,” Kyungsoo affirmed, “How was work?”

“As usual. Good. How about you?” Kyungsoo’s father replied, already evidently sounding tired.

Kyungsoo looked to the television for a while and saw the usual drama series starring a very popular leading actress he had probably written about in an online article compilation of celebrities born under a specific star sign or something like that.

“Umm…mine was good too,” Kyungsoo answered solely to keep the conversation going so he could ask about something else instead, “So…uh, I wanted to ask about something.”

“What is it?” Kyungsoo’s father continued, eyes still glued to the television.

“It’s about uncle and the farmland and-,” Kyungsoo was cut off when he heard his father sigh and rub his temple, leading Kyungsoo to further believe that there was something foul at play due to his father’s reaction at the mention.

“Yeah, what about it?” Kyungsoo’s father asked, exasperatedly.

“Did uncle really sell it because he needed the money and just wanted to let it go?” Kyungsoo questioned, turning sideways to face his father, “-even after everything grandpa said to keep the land because it belonged to our family? Since we closed the farm, the costs to maintain the land has been minimal so I don’t see a reason as to why he would just sell it off like that. He has a good job too now and a steady income so I don’t understand why he’d just do that. There must be another reason why he did that.”

“I don’t know, Kyungsoo,” Kyungsoo’s father heaved, “He is the oldest son so the decision lies in his hands. I don’t really have a say in it. He did give me a bit of money from the sale though. He’s getting older so maybe he just doesn’t want the hassle of maintaining it. Why don’t you ask him if you really want to know?”

“I did,” Kyungsoo insisted, “-and he just tells me the same thing you did. So I was hoping you knew more than what he told me.”

Kyungsoo’s father simply shrugged and Kyungsoo knew the conversation was pointless from there on, as he would just be going around in circles with the topic but never actually finding the answer he truly wanted to hear.

Kyungsoo adamantly believed that something was not right, although he did not rule out the possibility that their family’s farmland was really sold for that purpose his uncle and father claimed to be.

But until then, Kyungsoo would not stop at his pursuit of the truth, considering that was also the original purpose of the journalism field he was employed in; which was admittedly now just an easy and effortless way to make money off of the consumers. 

**

The next morning, Kyungsoo stopped at his apartment on the way to work; just to quickly dash inside to grab his suit and tie, before running back out and making sure that he wasn’t being followed or watched.

Then after a rather slow day at work, Kyungsoo changed into his suit and tie in a public restroom, stuffing all his work clothes into his bag which he later stored in a rental locker at the train station.

Formal suits for men and gowns for women were part of the club’s dress code and Kyungsoo wanted to blend in as much as possible without being too suspicious, as his mission was to unearth whatever else he could find on Chanyeol.

From the station, Kyungsoo hailed a ride to drive him to “Club Noir”, the expensive private nightclub Chanyeol was known to visit frequently.

Kyungsoo could have had Junmyeon drive him there but he didn’t feel it was right to further involve Junmyeon in this personal agenda of his, especially when considering that Chanyeol could be a very dangerous man.

Kyungsoo did encounter a problem though. As it was a private club, he couldn’t actually just do a walk-in and enter without being a member or a guest of one.

From some information Kyungsoo had dug up during his research, membership fees to Club Noir could go up to 50 million won annually; which was more than what Kyungsoo actually earned in a year.

On top of that, there was also a burly bouncer standing outside at the entrance, checking on everyone before letting them enter.

Kyungsoo stalked the club from a departmental store across the street, waiting for his opportunity to enter.

When a limousine pulled up in front of the club and a rich-looking woman stepped out, ready to enter the club, Kyungsoo dashed out of the department store and walked behind the woman without her noticing.

The bouncer let her in but stopped Kyungsoo with a strong arm pressed to his shoulder, towering Kyungsoo by at least a good five inches.

“I can’t let you in,” The bouncer firmly stated.

“-but I’m with her. I’m her personal assistant. I just arrived in another car.” Kyungsoo pointed to the woman who had just entered the club as the door swung shut in his face.

The bouncer continued to side-eye Kyungsoo, looking a bit confused.

Kyungsoo lied straight through his teeth, “I mean, you know how all these people are. She’s embarrassed to be seen with me because I’m just an assistant so I couldn’t ride with her in the limo and had to take a taxi. You seriously have to let me in though. She’ll be pissed if she finds out I’m not in there. I-I don’t want to get fired. Please. My grandmother is sick and my sister needs money to go to college-”

Kyungsoo continued rambling on about a fake family who was in dire need and how he was the sole provider who absolutely needed to enter the club to not get fired by his employer, the so-called woman who had just entered a few minutes ago.

Just then, another staff of Club Noir, dressed in all-black, came outside of the club to whisper something in the bouncer’s ear; before the both of them glared at Kyungsoo rather perplexedly.

“Alright, you can go in,” The bouncer immediately responded, pushing Kyungsoo through the entrance by the shoulder.

“Thank you so much,” Kyungsoo feigned a sigh of relief, gleaming to himself as he stepped through the door.

It was darker inside the club and Kyungsoo needed some time for his eyes to adjust to the dim orange lighting.

Behind the entrance was a regally decorated hallway with roman-like pillars, expensive paintings on the walls and carpeted floors. 

There was a receptionist’s desk at one corner, where a woman in a suit was answering calls at, not seeming to even acknowledge Kyungsoo’s presence.

Kyungsoo was nervous but he tried to not let that show, faking confidence and comfort in such a place he truly didn’t belong at.

Kyungsoo continued walking down the hallway, which led to a staircase that led downwards into the main club area.

Kyungsoo began his descent down the staircase and arrived in another hallway with floors tiled in black and the walls glowing like red lava lamps.

Although he had yet to see anyone, he could already light chatter and the clinking of glasses from just around the corner.

Kyungsoo took a deep breath and straightened out the front of his suit before walking towards the main club area.

There was a bar with several bartenders preparing drinks in one corner. The bar itself also glowed red, much like the theme of the rest of the club.

The bar overlooked a sitting area, which was decorated in a luxurious Victorian-style from the ceilings to the floors to the furniture.

The place reeked of cigars and alcohol as they were consumed by the wealthy people there, dressed in suits and dresses that probably cost as much as a cheap car.

Kyungsoo truly was and felt like a fish out of water but for the sake of his investigation, Kyungsoo sucked it up and sat himself down at the bar, checking his phone and pretending to the bartender that he was waiting for someone and would not be ordering until then; knowing full well that even a glass of water there would burn a hole in his wallet.

The bartender did also shot a weird, judging glance at Kyungsoo, similar to the one the club employee and bouncer gave him outside the club.

Kyungsoo knew they suspected him but he didn’t plan on staying long enough before they found out he didn’t belong there.

Although Chanyeol’s men had taken most of his good and expensive cameras, Kyungsoo still had a small spy camera which he put in his sleeve, which was mainly used for people to cheat at a casino.

Kyungsoo also turned on the voice recording featured on his phone and put it in his front pocket, so it would be easier to catch any conversations around him.

At one point, Kyungsoo got up and pretended to need to use the toilet.

However, the moment he got up from the barstool, two more bouncers approached him from behind and tapped Kyungsoo on the shoulder, which made him jump in surprise.

Kyungsoo was startled and looked over his shoulder at the two bouncers staring him down under the dim lighting.

“Uh…,” Kyungsoo gaped, knowing he had probably fucked up and was about to be thrown out.

The bouncers grabbed Kyungsoo on either arm, half dragging and walking him past the club’s sitting area, down another hallway and into what appeared to be a private room.

Kyungsoo tried to negotiate himself out of the sticky situation but before he could even get a point across to the bouncers, he was then tossed into a room that was similarly decorated as to the club’s theme.

The bouncers promptly left Kyungsoo in the room, leaving him alone with another person there.

There were two Victorian-style couches in the room with a wooden table that fit the décor in the middle.

Kyungsoo didn’t really have the opportunity to take a good look at the surroundings or at the other person in this room with him yet, because he had landed on his knees on the floor, barely just in time to catch himself with his hands before landing face flat on the carpet.

From his position near the floor, Kyungsoo was only able to see a pair of polished and expensive dress shoes, before lifting himself up from the floor and freezing to his spot as his eyes grew wider and round in surprise.

“Park Chanyeol-,” Kyungsoo gasped, upon recognizing who the other person in the room was.

“Why, hello there, Do Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol greeted in return, making a hand gesture while seated with his legs crossed on the couch, “-since we already know each other’s names and probably a lot about each other too, I guess that saves us from the introduction.”

Chanyeol had a wine glass in one hand, smiling back at Kyungsoo from his sitting position while dressed in a designer three-piece grey suit, making Kyungsoo’s discount suit look cheaper in comparison.

“Y-you stole my cameras and all my hard drives!” Kyungsoo immediately accused, standing about an arm’s length away from the edge of the couch Chanyeol was seated on.

“Not directly but technically yes, I have,” Chanyeol shrugged.

“How did you know I was here too!?” Kyungsoo was bewildered.

“I own this place. Since your little stunt of following me around and taking pictures of me without my consent, I’ve had some of my men return the favor and they followed you here too. Good timing though, how did you know I was here?” Chanyeol raised his wine glass to Kyungsoo before taking several sips.

Kyungsoo ignored the question, “You are such an asshole! You didn’t have to steal my cameras. I needed that for my work!”

“Am I?” Chanyeol returned, looking to Kyungsoo for an answer, “You were the one who started following me around. I was merely just trying to protect myself. I can’t have you or your buddies from the press starting articles or news about me-”

“Fuck you!” Kyungsoo cursed, letting his anger take the best of him.

“So soon?” Chanyeol chuckled, “I thought that comes after dinner and after we learn a bit more about each other at least.”

Kyungsoo was about ready to storm out of the room when he suddenly realized his main purpose of wanting to be there. Hastily, Kyungsoo turned around almost in a complete circle to face Chanyeol, still seated on the couch.

“I have questions I’d like answers to. If you can answer them for me, I promise I will no longer stalk you or photograph you without your consent. To be honest, I’m not following you for work purposes so I don’t see a need to continue following you once I get what I want,” Kyungsoo pointed out.

“Hmm…” Chanyeol pondered, “Is it money?”

“No!” Kyungsoo corrected, “I need information! Two months ago, you purchased a property in a village with a closed-up farm in the North Jeolla Province. It was owned by someone with the surname ‘Do’. That land belonged to my family and my uncle would never ever give it up so why did you buy it? Your business doesn’t even concern real estate and even if it did, why would you even want to buy a farmland so far out in the rural area with no signs of development?”

Chanyeol hummed in thought for a while, before speaking up, “I think I do remember making the purchase but I can’t tell you why the deal was made. It’s against the customer’s confidentiality for me to do so.”

“-but this concerns my family land!” Kyungsoo insisted, balling up his fists, “I mean, I know I haven’t been back there in 8 years but I still have very sentimental values towards it!”

“I’m sorry, Kyungsoo. Even if it concerns your family, I cannot help you with that,” Chanyeol apologized, actually looking rather empathetic too.

“No,” Kyungsoo almost shouted out in despair, “You were my last chance at finally getting answers!”

“Well, why don’t you try asking your family then?” Chanyeol suggested.

“I wouldn’t have come here if they gave me answers!” Kyungsoo snapped.

“So I guessed they didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear?” Chanyeol assumed, putting his wine glass down on the table and leaning an arm against the back of the couch, “What were you expecting then?”

“Never mind,” Kyungsoo sighed, about to stomp off, only to be physically stopped by Chanyeol who quickly stood up and grabbed Kyungsoo by the tie.

Chanyeol rolled some of Kyungsoo’s tie in his hand, forcing Kyungsoo to come up closer and tilt his head upwards to face the taller Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo was actually beginning to feel scared now, especially when he remembered about the rumors of Chanyeol being involved in the crime underworld.

“Tell me,” Chanyeol rasped, his deep voice growling as he tilted his head and spoke too dangerously close at Kyungsoo’s ears, “What kind of answer were you expecting?”

Kyungsoo gulped, looking to the ceiling instead as he was almost forced onto his tiptoes to make up for the height difference, “Well, I suspected some foul play, like you forcing my uncle to sell his land because you needed it for some reasons.”

“-and what kind of reasons were you thinking about?” Chanyeol continued interrogating, suddenly moving a free hand to hold Kyungsoo’s hip.

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo was just desperate to get out of there now, “-maybe something to do with your side business.”

“-and what side business do you think I own?” Chanyeol this time whispered right against Kyungsoo’s ear, sending a warm breath that ghosted down the latter’s skin.

“Umm…I don’t know,” Kyungsoo bluffed, knowing heads would probably be rolling if he admitted to knowing about Chanyeol’s meetings with a known high-ranking member of the mafia.

“Don’t pretend I don’t know,” Chanyeol pulled away, letting go of Kyungsoo’s tie, “I saw the pictures you took of me and I didn’t like some of them so I had my men erase it. I will return your cameras but only after they have been cleared of evidence. I’ll have my men send them over to your parent’s place where you’re staying at now.”

Kyungsoo gaped in surprise again that Chanyeol knew he was hiding away at his parent’s house now, actually thinking he was sneaky by choosing not to stay at his own apartment for the time being.

“You’re cute so don’t go looking for trouble, okay? Just forget about this and go do your job and take pictures of celebrities. Stop following me. It’s dangerous-” Chanyeol talked down to Kyungsoo, pinching the younger man’s cheek.

“-b-but my family’s…,” Kyungsoo stuttered.

Chanyeol sighed, folding his arms over his chest, “That’s a family problem and has nothing to do with me. If you think your uncle is lying about selling the land, only he can answer that to you. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo sighed dejectedly, his shoulders slumping forward.

Chanyeol patted Kyungsoo on the shoulder reassuringly before pulling out some cash from his pocket, handing it to Kyungsoo, “-for you to get a ride home and buy a disposable camera until I give yours back.”

Kyungsoo eyed the money Chanyeol was handing out to him and although his pride told him not to take it, his sense of self as a broke millennial made him actually take it.

“Thanks,” Kyungsoo muttered, quickly depositing the wads of cash into his own pocket.

“Take care now,” Chanyeol smiled at Kyungsoo, squeezing his shoulder before letting his hands run down the side of Kyungsoo’s arm and towards his hips again.

“Uh-what are you-“ Kyungsoo’s eyes followed Chanyeol’s hand which seemed to be exploring him.

Kyungsoo yelped when he felt Chanyeol’s hand slip into the front pocket of his coat.

“I put my card in there,” Chanyeol grinned with his mouth open wide, “Once you get over this whole family issue thing and if you ever feel bored, call me. I’d like to take you out sometime. I think you’re cute.”

Kyungsoo didn’t hear the rest of it as he was already running out of the club and didn’t even stop until he was at least a street down from there. It was as if knowing Chanyeol was attracted to him, scared Kyungsoo even more.

Kyungsoo took the bus home and waited until he was back in the spare room at his parent’s house before counting the amount of money Chanyeol had gave him.

Least to say, it was enough to pay Junmyeon to drive him around and use his car for a stakeout more than ten times.

Kyungsoo did feel a bit bad for just taking Chanyeol’s money like that, but he justified it by Chanyeol’s theft of his cameras which he needed for his job and the time Kyungsoo had wasted stalking Chanyeol, only to find out that he didn’t have the answers Kyungsoo wanted.


	3. Pursuit (Part 2)

Two working days later, Kyungsoo received a parcel with his cameras and everything Chanyeol had taken from him, wiped of all data pertaining to Chanyeol although his work material was left almost untouched.

Kyungsoo also moved back into his own apartment, lying to his parents that the gas problem was fixed by his landlord already.

As promised, Kyungsoo stopped following Chanyeol around and had almost forgotten about the entire encounter with the said CEO, until they ran into each other again a few weeks later.

This time, it was by mere coincidence, although it made sense for either of them to be there at the time.

Kyungsoo was asked by his company to attend a fundraising gala on the rooftop patio of a five-star hotel. Kyungsoo was there to interview a rather publicly known CEO of another media and publishing company, who was also the one holding the said event.

As Kyungsoo was there on official matters, Junmyeon would be his chauffeur for the evening, driving Kyungsoo to and back from the hotel.

After the main event, which involved rich businessman and businesswoman coming up to the front stage with huge mock checks and pledging so and so amount and contributions, the guests were allowed to mingle around with an open bar and a buffet table laid out.

Kyungsoo quickly got down to business and interviewed the philanthropist CEO at a table somewhere near the poolside as per the latter’s request.

Meanwhile, Junmyeon was trying to take away some of the food from the buffet, seeing as there were rather expensive dishes being served and wanting to take some home for his children to try.

After the interview and some pictures, Kyungsoo too wandered to the buffet table to look for Junmyeon, who found someone he knew in the crowd and was now busy talking to them.

Not wanting to disturb, Kyungsoo found himself instead looking at a tiered tray of cream-covered pastries.

Kyungsoo was wearing a rental penguin suit this time and had his camera hanging from a strap down from his neck.

Pushing the camera strap aside to his shoulder so he could bend forward and reach for the food, Kyungsoo took a piece of the pastry from the tray and was ready to pop it into his mouth when he sensed the presence of someone looming around behind him.

“Kyungsoo!”

“Huh?” Kyungsoo looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened at the presence of this newcomer, still holding the pastry in front of his half-open mouth.

“I missed you, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol lowered his head slightly to match Kyungsoo’s level, smiling fondly, dressed in a tuxedo and a bowtie.

“What are you doing here!?” Kyungsoo spoke, coming off more as an accusation rather than a question. Kyungsoo placed the pastry back on the tray, bewilderedly looking around and hoping no one he knew saw him talking to Chanyeol.

“I’m a businessman,” Chanyeol continued smiling, “-and I was invited to attend this fundraiser to make a donation. It’s normal for me to get invited to events such as these..”

Kyungsoo snickered dryly, “-and what do you have to contribute?”

“Money,” Chanyeol answered, “I have lots of that.”

“Ugh, of course,” Kyungsoo grunted, rolling his eyes and turning away from Chanyeol, pretending to check out the other types of food being served.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Chanyeol asked, following Kyungsoo around the buffet table, “I was waiting for you to call me. I missed you.”

“Why should I call you in the first place?” Kyungsoo turned his head to look at Chanyeol behind him, who seemed to be pouting and acting all cutesy.

“-because I wanted to take you out for dinner and a date. We could walk together down the river and watch the stars under the night sky,” Chanyeol revealed, “Then we can go back to my place and talk about ourselves over some wine and let things take us from there.”

“What!?” Kyungsoo almost shouted out, cupping both hands over his mouth as he looked around to see if anyone had noticed that. Thankfully, no one had.

“You can’t deny the attraction between us, Kyungsoo. You like me. I like you,” Chanyeol leaned against the edge of the buffet table, tilting his head slightly at Kyungsoo who was still scanning the crowd.

“Who said I like you?” Kyungsoo pretended to not know what Chanyeol was talking about, purposely avoiding eye contact with the CEO.

“Well, the close-up pictures of me you have saved in your camera and on your drive really says otherwise,” Chanyeol teased.

“Those were for my investigation, which turned out to be a failure and a total waste of my time and resources,” Kyungsoo sighed, holding onto the camera strapped down his shoulder like he would hold a bag.

“To be fair, your investigation was a gamble and you just lost. That’s normal in gambling…just like investing in stocks,” Chanyeol compared, “-but I’m a businessman and that’s what I do but for you, I’m willing to take a gamble.”

“Invest your stocks elsewhere. My shares aren’t for sale,” Kyungsoo quickly looked for Junmyeon in the crowd, wanting to leave the event already.

“Don’t forget to call me!” Chanyeol told Kyungsoo rather loudly before the latter stormed off.

Kyungsoo later found Junmyeon beside the fruit punch bowl, pouring some of the punch into a flask he had brought with him.

“Drive me home now. I need to get out of here,” Kyungsoo said in one breath.

“Oh, sure. You’re done here?” Junmyeon asked, drinking a little from his flask, offering Kyungsoo some of the drink, “You want some?”

“No thanks,” Kyungsoo put a hand out to refuse, shaking his head, “Just get me out of here now before I end up in a body bag at the bottom of the Han River.”

“Is anyone bothering you?” Junmyeon squinted his eyes, looking over Kyungsoo’s shoulder and towards the crowd.

“No! Of course not,” Kyungsoo denied, “I just feel uncomfortable around all these rich people. I need to go home and quickly write up the interview.”

“Sure then. I was just about done too. Give me a second,” Junmyeon quickly scooped more of the fruit punch into his flask with the ladle provided.

“Hurry up,” Kyungsoo hasted, spotting the plastic containers Junmyeon had gotten from the servers to take away the food, “I’ll carry this for you to the car. Just hurry.”

From afar, standing at a corner near the poolside, Chanyeol was still watching Kyungsoo walk away from the venue.

Chanyeol really found Kyungsoo rather adorable, even when half-annoyed and despite how Kyungsoo always seemed to be in a rush constantly.

While Chanyeol was still smiling to himself at the thought of Kyungsoo, he was approached by Sehun, his driver and assistant.

“Are you going to let him go again this time?” Sehun questioned.

“He isn’t causing any trouble anymore,” Chanyeol assured, “-besides, it’s not like he works for the Sangchal Group as we suspected earlier on.”

“However, he did have pictures of you which could put you in a compromising position. Even if we have taken care of that already, it doesn’t change the fact that he knows,” Sehun pointed out, “Wouldn’t it be wise for us to keep our eyes on him in that case?”

“No, don’t,” Chanyeol shook his head, softly turning down the idea as he put a hand out to convey his expression, “I don’t want to involve him any further.”

“You say that but you keep hoping he’ll call you,” Sehun side-eyed Chanyeol.

Chanyeol smiled, chuckling a little, “Well, I can’t help myself. He really is my type, you know.”

Sehun could only sigh and shake his head.

Kyungsoo never called Chanyeol; even when Chanyeol had told him to do so a few times now. The idea of a free dinner and a date with an attractive and rich man did seem interesting but Kyungsoo wasn’t that easy of a person to be led on like that

Furthermore, Kyungsoo was always busy working or preparing for the next news scoop to have enough time to date. Kyungsoo had spent all twenty-five years of his life as a single man and he wasn’t intent on changing that anytime soon.

His work and goals were what mattered and anything else was just a distraction. While Kyungsoo had come to a dead-end regarding his personal investigation behind the purchase of his family’s land, it didn’t mean that he had given up on it.

It just meant that he needed to find new ways or discover new sources as to how he would get the information he needed, having decided that Chanyeol was really useless when it came to that; despite how he initially believed that Chanyeol would have all the answers he needed.

Kyungsoo had moved on from investigating Chanyeol and was now busy pursuing Byun Baekhyun, the supposed high-ranking mafia member whom Chanyeol was photographed meeting and talking to a few times.

Kyungsoo believed that if he could really find out what Chanyeol’s “side business” was and what the dealings with Baekhyun had to deal with, he believed that he would be able to make some connections and unravel the truth behind the purchase of his family land.

Kyungsoo knew it was dangerous and risky especially when considering that this Baekhyun guy was several levels shadier than Chanyeol was. In fact, it was even easier to dig up basic information regarding Chanyeol but even the slightest bit regarding Baekhyun was as hard as finding a needle in a haystack.

But Kyungsoo was stubborn, persistent and maybe listened to his heart more than usual.

Knowing the risks, Kyungsoo told no one about his investigation this time, even when he felt like he needed the help of Junmyeon’s car and ability to drive.

So far, Kyungsoo had managed to successfully trail and follow Baekhyun on at least two occasions.

The first time, Kyungsoo followed Baekhyun to an expensive Chinese restaurant. However, Kyungsoo wasn’t able to gain entry and see who Baekhyun was meeting up within there.

The second time, Kyungsoo followed Baekhyun to a location which ended up to be Club Noir. Upon seeing the club from afar and Baekhyun headed there, Kyungsoo quickly turned on his heel and ran the other way. The thought of running into Chanyeol again had actually scared him off, more than the thought of being caught.

Kyungsoo halted his investigations temporarily after escaping a repeat of the club Noir incident, especially since he was extra busy during the summer because he was tasked on writing up compilation articles on summer idol group comebacks and who exactly “slayed” the season; which required him to attend a lot of concerts, showcases, and events.

While Kyungsoo never wanted to even be an entertainment journalist and wasn’t even interested in the whole idol culture, he was fine with it because it paid his bills.

On top of that, Kyungsoo liked making Junmyeon and his kids happy by giving them extra press passes to watch their favorite idols and variety show tapings.

About a week later, while still busy in the whole summer news and article rush, Kyungsoo decided to stop by at a coffee shop one morning just along the way to the office.

On the sidewalk outside, Kyungsoo was already able to smell the aroma of the coffee brewing from inside the shop. Kyungsoo often saved money by making coffee at home but since payday was yesterday, he thought he might as well treat himself to some fancy designer drink.

Kyungsoo was about to enter and was still thinking of what to order when a luxury black sedan screeched and pulled up at the curbside.

“What the-,” Kyungsoo jumped out of the way, thinking he was about to get hit by the car.

Kyungsoo did not immediately recognize the car and was hesitating to get inside the shop, wanting to see what kind of person would be driving so recklessly like that.

Instead, the rear door swung open to reveal Chanyeol, impeccably dressed as usual.

“Get in,” Chanyeol ordered, stern but persuasive, “-your life is in danger.”

Pretending to not know Chanyeol and the last few seconds despite the warning, Kyungsoo was about to turn around and head into the coffee shop when he saw Chanyeol pull out a gun.

“Whoa! Hold up! Don’t shoot,” Kyungsoo panicked, lifting his hands up as if to show that he unarmed and meant no harm.

Kyungsoo flinched, frozen to the spot on the sidewalk, his eyes closed as he trembled with his hands still up in the air when he heard a gunshot roaring and echoing, as well as the sounds of another car screeching to a halt behind the one Chanyeol was in.

Kyungsoo gasped almost breathlessly, thinking that Chanyeol had shot him- not ruling out such a possibility.

Instead, Kyungsoo felt a pair of hands roughly tugging him away from the spot. Kyungsoo dared himself to look and saw himself pressed against Chanyeol’s chest as the latter continued firing bullets into the car that had just pulled up behind them.

Still in a state of perpetual shock, unable to say or do anything, Kyungsoo felt his head being pressed down before he was shoved into the back of Chanyeol’s car.

The next thing Kyungsoo knew, Chanyeol himself abruptly jumped into the car, pushing Kyungsoo aside. Even before Chanyeol was done pulling the door shut, the car they were in had immediately sped off from the curbside.

“Sehun! Lose them and send us to the airport,“ Chanyeol instructed to Sehun in the driver’s seat.

“I shall,” Sehun replied, one hand on the steering and the other on the gear.

The car swerved through traffic, avoiding stops and making sharp turns that sent Kyungsoo thrown left and right and into Chanyeol in the moving car.

“Careful,” Chanyeol cautioned, helping Kyungsoo to a sitting position when he fell face flat onto Chanyeol’s lap at a corner, promptly fixing his tie after.

It was only then that Kyungsoo finally regained his common sense to solve that problem by using the seatbelt provided. Chanyeol didn’t seem to say anything or complain though, even though Kyungsoo was really embarrassed by that.

Once they had seemingly lost their pursuers and were driving smoothly and straight on the highway and the initial haze of confusion had settled down, Kyungsoo almost jumped in his seat at the realization.

“Oh my god!? What happened? Where are you taking me?” Kyungsoo bewilderedly asked Chanyeol.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Chanyeol sighed, leaning his head back against the headrest.

“W-who were those people? Why did you shoot them? Oh my god, please don’t tell me you killed someone!” Kyungsoo frantically looked through the rear glass to see if they were still being chased, which they were not.

“-before that, give me your phone,” Chanyeol held out a palm to Kyungsoo.

“Uh...sure?” Kyungsoo fished into his pocket for his phone before handing it over, thinking Chanyeol wanted to borrow it to make a call.

Instead, Chanyeol pressed the button to wind down the window before tossing Kyungsoo’s phone out of the moving car.

“What!?” Kyungsoo was sent into shock for what was probably the umpteenth time that day, “I have work and all my contacts in there! I’m still paying the installments for that! I only got it less than half a year ago.”

With a blank expression, Chanyeol turned to face Kyungsoo again, “I’ll get you a new phone, okay. Now that I’m sure we can’t be tracked. I’ll tell you everything regarding why you’re here and why you have to stick beside me from now on.”

Kyungsoo remained silent, suspended in disbelief at the turn of events even before nine in the morning.

“A month or so ago, you took a picture of me talking to Byun Baekhyun from the Sangchal Group outside Club Noir, am I correct?” Chanyeol questioned, “-and you were aware that the Sangchal group is the front for the Seoul mafia.”

“Y-yes,” Kyungsoo stammered, sort of understanding how he ended up in such a situation when Chanyeol brought up the Sangchal Group.

“And how exactly did you find out that the man talking to me in the picture is Byun Baekhyun, a high ranking member of the Sangchal Group?” Chanyeol continued to ask, alarmed but still managing to remain calm.

“I have a co-worker who does investigations into these organized crimes and gang activities. He saw the pictures I took and he recognized the man as Byun Baekhyun. That’s how I know,” Kyungsoo admitted, “-and uh…I might have been following him around these past few weeks because I thought it would help me answer the reason behind the purchase of my family’s land.”

Chanyeol sighed, pressing his forefinger to his temple as he grunted before turning back to Kyungsoo, “Are you aware that Baekhyun knows you have been following him and that this co-worker of yours is actually part of the Sangchal Group too? It’s common for the mafia to have plants working in the press so they can stop any articles or news circulating about them.”

“O-okay,” Kyungsoo felt even scared, “But it wasn’t like I was planning to write up a report or become the whistleblower to tell the public about the Sangchal Group’s illegal activities. I just need answers and you know what I want has nothing to do with this.”

“Well, do you think Baekhyun knows that? All he knows is that a journalist has been following him and for someone like him in his position, his first instinct is to protect himself and eliminate everything that might jeopardize him,” Chanyeol sounded a bit angrier this time.

“Then why are you here? Isn’t this supposed to be a personal problem of mine?” Kyungsoo cowered by distancing himself as far as possible from Chanyeol within the back of what he guessed to probably be a Mercedes.

Even from the driver’s seat in front, Kyungsoo could hear Sehun snicker a little. He then turned to look at Chanyeol who looked like he had a headache and was a bit fed up with things.

“It’s my problem too now,” Chanyeol sighed, “Baekhyun has actually had people follow you around since your co-worker found out about the pictures and told him about it. Since they saw you meeting me a few times, once in Club Noir and the other time during the fundraiser gala, Baekhyun seems to believe you’re my…lover.”

“Huh?” Kyungsoo blurted out, “What?”

“I got a really angry phone call from Baekhyun this morning accusing me of sending you to follow him. He never trusted me but he is forced to work with me because he needs an intermediary for his business transactions. So, naturally, he’s pissed off and he thinks we’re together so he wants to take the both of us out,” Chanyeol revealed, “I was worried about you so I’ve been following you since you left your apartment this morning”.

“I knew it!” Kyungsoo looked excited for some reason, pointing a finger at Chanyeol, “I knew you had dealings with the mafia and your business aren’t just financing and you just confirmed it to me when you admitted working with Byun Baekhyun.”

“I’m not going to deny that,” Chanyeol responded.

Kyungsoo laughed to himself at finally managing to answer at least a portion of the question surrounding his personal investigation, “So, where are you going to drop me off now? I need to go back to work since you literally snatched me off the street while I was on my way.”

“You’re silly,” Chanyeol chuckled, easing up a little, “You can’t go back to work or go anywhere with Baekhyun after your cute ass. You’re coming with me somewhere safe for the time being.”

“-and where is that?” Kyungsoo scrunched up his nose.

“Macau. I have a safe house there,” Chanyeol answered.

“You mean Macau in China?” Kyungsoo asked to confirm.

“Yes, that one,” Chanyeol affirmed.

“But I can’t just leave! What about work? And I don’t even have my passport!? How am I supposed to fly all the way to China?” Kyungsoo remained in disbelief.

Chanyeol assured, “Sehun is driving us to the airport now. I have a private plane fueled and ready to fly us out there. You won’t need a passport. I got it all settled.”

Kyungsoo winced, feeling like curling up on the seat and just disappearing from the world. He still found it hard to believe he was in this exact situation, thinking he could just go back to work and continue his day as usual.

That was really not the case though.


	4. Destinations (Part 1)

Kyungsoo once read somewhere in an article saying that if one should ever find themselves in a hostage situation, they should try their hardest to fight or run away because the chances of being found alive would drastically drop if a hostage allows themselves to be relocated to a different place.

And despite reminding himself to take note of that fact should he ever find himself in such a situation, Kyungsoo realized that planning and actually doing something was two worlds apart.

He had let Chanyeol pretty much drag him out of Korea and all the way to a different country, when all Kyungsoo planned to do was get coffee, go to work and end his day with a bowl of cup noodles while watching something on TV.

Kyungsoo guessed that he probably deserved all of this since he had it coming for himself.

When Sehun really drove them to a private airport somewhere in the outskirts of Seoul and closer to Incheon, Kyungsoo wasn’t really thinking straight and did not say much in protest when Chanyeol told him to get onto this fancy private jet waiting for them on the tarmac.

Kyungsoo wasn’t really thinking of the present. He was still worried about work; about what people would say when they weren’t able to contact him, about the phone Chanyeol had thrown out of a moving car and possibly getting evicted if he didn’t get back in time to pay his rent which was due in four days.

Sehun did not come along with them although Kyungsoo did overhear their conversation, with Chanyeol telling Sehun to “handle matters” and later meet up with them in Macau when it was safe.

But after an almost four hours flight, Kyungsoo really found himself in Macau only with the clothes on his back and a backpack with just a wallet and a camera, since Chanyeol had made Kyungsoo get rid of the laptop before the flight.

In such an unfamiliar place in a situation he had never dealt with before, Kyungsoo was forced to cling to and follow Chanyeol around if he wanted to get out of this alive.

From the airport, a limousine picked Kyungsoo and Chanyeol up, where they were later dropped off at the Wynn Palace, a luxury casino hotel within the famous Cotai Strip, which was known for being the location of numerous casino hotels on the island.

Chanyeol picked up a key from the receptionist at the hotel’s grand lobby, with Kyungsoo following him around like a lost child through the lobby and up the elevator towards the penthouse floor they would be staying at. 

Kyungsoo was never a gambler nor was he ever interested in it. Therefore, Macau was one of the last places he thought he’d ever want to be at. If he recalled correctly, Kyungsoo did think that it was actually prohibited by the government for Korean nationals to gamble even on foreign grounds.

Then again, considering the mess he was in and the business Chanyeol meddled with, the law wasn’t something he would actually be concerned with.

In all the years of his life, Kyungsoo never thought he’d end up in a place he never even dreamed of due to circumstance he wouldn’t even think of, with a person who seemed entire worlds apart from him.

It was only four in the afternoon and after everything that happened that morning, Kyungsoo found it the least of his worries to know that he would have to share the penthouse with Chanyeol for the rest of their stay. 

The penthouse did have two bedrooms so it was not like he had to sleep in the same bed with Chanyeol, knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to due to the awkwardness and his undeniable attraction towards the said man.

On top of all that, Kyungsoo did not fully trust Chanyeol, although sticking by him was his best bet within this predicament.

The moment they had arrived at the penthouse, Chanyeol’s first action was to shut all the curtains to cover all the floor-to-ceiling windows. Kyungsoo didn’t manage to get a good look at the view from the penthouse yet but he did catch the sight of the Macau Dome, an indoor stadium just outside the hotel.

Chanyeol babbled something about not allowing Kyungsoo to draw the curtains open ever and he merely nodded in agreement, not really knowing how to respond to that.

The penthouse itself was several times larger than Kyungsoo’s entire one-bedroom apartment and he found it initially disorienting whatnot with the gold color scheme of the furniture, wall and even the decorations.

The beds were threaded with Egyptian cotton. There was a walk-in closet in both rooms as well as a large bathroom attached, with a bathtub and television in each of the bathrooms. 

Somehow, due to how large and luxurious this place was, it made Kyungsoo feel even more unsettled and uncomfortable. 

Kyungsoo wasn’t sure if he would even be able to rest or relax in such a place like this. It all felt so alien to him.

Kyungsoo holed himself up in his room in the penthouse, curling up his legs to his chest as he sat near the edge of the bed while watching box-office movies on the large flat-screen television mounted to the wall.

The movies were entertaining and immersive enough for Kyungsoo to get distracted and temporarily forget that he was actually being chased by people who were very likely to kill him.

Realizing that some time had passed since then, Kyungsoo finally got up from the bed after the third movie he had watched- ended.

A digital clock on the bedside table notified Kyungsoo that it was 11:12 at night and he was almost surprised at how much time had passed since then, although it was plausible since one movie was at least two hours long and he had sat through three of those.

It was late afternoon when Kyungsoo arrived in Macau and almost midnight now.

Since he entered the room and had not left, Kyungsoo had no idea what Chanyeol was even up to. Wanting to check up on the person whom he was depending on for survival at the moment, Kyungsoo slightly cracked open his door and popped his head outside to look for any signs of Chanyeol.

Sure enough, he could hear Chanyeol’s familiar baritone voice speaking to someone else- presumably over the phone- coming from the kitchen area in the penthouse.

Kyungsoo left his room and padded across the pristine marble floor, making his way towards Chanyeol in the kitchen, who was on the phone with someone just as expected.

Kyungsoo waited on the opposite side of the kitchen counter from where Chanyeol was standing and pacing up and down as he was on the phone.

Chanyeol noticed Kyungsoo’s presence and acknowledged it with a slight nod of his head before pointing to the phone pressed up against his ear, resuming the conversation while Kyungsoo just stood there wearing the hotel’s robe over his t-shirt and boxers.

Somewhere along the way, Kyungsoo had just stripped down to just wearing that, considering that he didn’t have a spare change of clothes other than the ones he was wearing when he arrived. Kyungsoo’s logic was keeping his clothes as clean and unsoiled as much as possible.

Chanyeol ended the phone call just barely a few minutes after Kyungsoo arrived there in the kitchen.

Chanyeol himself had undressed from his usual tailored suit and was now just wearing his dress-shirt and the pair of trousers that came with it. While his hair was neatly combed and styled when he encountered Kyungsoo that morning, it was slightly disheveled and loose on his head at this time of the night.

“I thought you were asleep,” Chanyeol noted, placing the phone down onto the countertop as he rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt all the way up to his elbows, “Are you hungry? You can order room service if you want. Just get anything you want to have. I’ll pay for it.”

“Umm…I don’t feel like eating yet,” Kyungsoo replied, fidgeting around a little.

“So, what’s the matter?” Chanyeol questioned again, looking across the kitchen counter between them as their eyes met each other under the incandescent lighting.

“I was just wondering when I’d be able to you know, go home,” Kyungsoo admitted, feeling a bit scared for even bringing it up now.

Chanyeol sighed and walked around the counter to face Kyungsoo up close.

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol apologized, gently pressing the back of his hand to Kyungsoo’s cheek, “I can’t let you go home yet. It’s too dangerous and I don’t want anything to happen to you. But I promise you I’ll handle this matter as soon as I can. You’ll have to stay here for a bit more but it will be resolved and you will get to go home.”

“Promise me?” Kyungsoo tilted his head upwards to look at Chanyeol in the eye, slightly trembling at the uncertainty, “To be honest, I’m actually very scared. I don’t want to end up as a corpse in an oil barrel dumped into the Han River.”

“You won’t end up as a corpse in an oil barrel dumped into the Han River, alright?” Chanyeol assured, calm and collectedly, “I’m here to protect you as much as I can. But you have to listen to me. For now, just stay put. You’ll be safe here.”

Kyungsoo too sighed but out of exasperation, looking downwards and nibbling on his lower lip as he felt Chanyeol moved the hand touching his cheek to his waist, just leaving it there reassuringly as if to remind Kyungsoo that he wasn’t alone.

“Fine,” Kyungsoo muttered, “I’ll stay here for now.”

“That’s good,” Chanyeol stated, “I’ll go order some room service for the both of us so we can eat and you can then go get some rest, alright?”

Kyungsoo nodded in return, pouting a little, somewhat relieved by Chanyeol’s assurance before requesting, “Can I have some pasta?”

“Of course,” Chanyeol chuckled a little, “We’ll get all the pasta you want.”

Three different types of pasta dishes from the hotel’s room service menu were ordered, of which Kyungsoo ended up eating two and leaving the last plate for Chanyeol, who only ate half of it anyway.

Chanyeol also ordered a bottle of white wine and had a drink himself while Kyungsoo turned it down and chose to drink boxed orange juice instead.

Kyungsoo never liked the taste of white wine. Red wine was usually tolerable but coffee was more of his thing. In fact, Kyungsoo was still thinking of the coffee he should have gotten that morning. It was going to be the tenth coffee for him to be eligible for the “collect 10 stamps for every coffee purchase to get one free”.

After the dinner which was eaten at midnight, Kyungsoo went back to his room and turned on another movie to watch while lying down. Chanyeol mentioned something about leaving to go meet his associates in Macau or something like that.

The movie Kyungsoo was watching was about a female undercover spy taking out her targets in choreographed fight scenes in scenic locations throughout the world. Or at least that’s what Kyungsoo managed to get out of it before falling asleep due to exhaustion.

Kyungsoo was startled awake due to a loud explosion scene at least two-thirds through the movie. Kyungsoo swore under his breath as he scrambled for the remote on top of the sheets beside him, quickly hitting the power button to turn off the television.

The time on the digital clock on the bedside table showed that it was a quarter past one in the morning.

Kyungsoo got up from the bed to turn off the lights and maybe turn down the air-conditioner setting too since it was getting rather cold in his room.

Before Kyungsoo could arrive at the wall panel where the switches and thermostat were, the phone on the nightstand beside the bed rang.

Without thinking twice, Kyungsoo walked back to the bedside to pick up the phone, expecting the hotel staff to be calling him.

Instead, Kyungsoo heard the smooth voice of a man talking back to him.

“Do Kyungsoo?” The man over the phone called out his name with a rather snark tone in his voice, “I figure you’re now somewhere in a penthouse unit in some fancy hotel in the Cotai Strip. Ah, if I were to be precise, if you look out of your window you could probably see the Macau Dome, which narrows down your exact location to just a few hotels, really.”

Kyungsoo froze with the phone receiver glue to his right ear, unable to speak or respond as his mind raced frantically to look for a solution to this new problem, his brain trying to deny that the person on the phone was who Kyungsoo thought it was.

“Giving me the silent treatment, eh?” The man on the phone continued, “You probably don’t know who is calling you yet but it will ring some bells when I tell you my name. After all, you should know since your boyfriend sent you to follow me around. What are the both of you trying to do, huh? You want to expose my business to the media so I can get arrested and he can take over the Seoul underworld. Is that what you two want?”

Kyungsoo stuttered, “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie,” The man over the phone snapped, slamming something.

Kyungsoo swore he heard the voice of a woman and some children whimpering in the background after the loud slamming noise.

Kyungsoo was about to just hang up the call and run out of the room to look for Chanyeol when a familiar voice was heard over the phone.

“Kyungsoo!” Junmyeon was heard calling, sounding scared and rushed, “Kyungsoo, is this you!?”

“Junmyeon!” Kyungsoo’s heart almost jumped at hearing his friend’s voice, “Oh my god, where are you? Are you alright? Please tell me you’re alright.”

“Yes, Kyungsoo it’s me,” Junmyeon’s voice was broken and shaking, “This guy has my wife and children too. Please, you have to help us. He says his name is Byun Baekhyun and that if I tell you his name, you’ll know. Please, just do what he says. I’m scared-“

Before Junmyeon could go on, the phone was seemingly snatched from him as Baekhyun’s voice return to speak to Kyungsoo.

“I’m sure you heard that. I don’t have to repeat it again now, do I?” Baekhyun insisted, “Now if you want to see your friend alive and his family spared, you will do as I say.”

“What do you want!?” Kyungsoo was also shaking now, almost yelling into the phone at Baekhyun, “Leave them alone. They have no part in this.”

“Of course they didn’t have a part in this because it’s _you_ who dragged them into this by being involved with Park Chanyeol. Now, be responsible and do as I say and I’ll let them go unharmed,” Baekhyun threatened.

“I’ll do as you say,” Kyungsoo quickly gave in, “-but let me talk to him again, please. How can I guarantee that you’ll keep your promise?”

“I may be a criminal, Kyungsoo, but I don’t lie when it comes to business and this thing between us is business now,” Baekhyun sounded angrier, “Now, listen! I want you to go to the Macau Container Port just beside the public airport. Wait by the dock where I will send some men to pick you up. You must come alone. I give you until three in the morning if you ever want to see your friend and his family alive again.”

“I-is that it?” Kyungsoo still remained shaky.

“Yes! Now hurry and tell no one or I will hurt your friend and his family,” Baekhyun persistently threatened, abruptly ending the call before Kyungsoo could beg one last time to hear Junmyeon’s voice to be assured that he was indeed fine.

Kyungsoo ran out of his room to look for Chanyeol in the penthouse, only to find out that he wasn’t around and had presumably left to see the associate he was talking to on the phone from earlier on.

Also holding Baekhyun’s threat seriously, Kyungsoo held back his tears by biting his lower lip so hard that it almost bled- knowing that he couldn’t rely on Chanyeol for help this time if he wanted Junmyeon and his family to be safe.

Kyungsoo never wanted to involve Junmyeon into this mess but he already had and now Kyungsoo believed that he was the only one who could fix it.

Kyungsoo quickly got dressed and left the penthouse in a hurry. At the front reception desk, Kyungsoo was able to ask in English for directions to the airport, not wanting the receptionist to be suspicious as to why he needed to be at a container port at almost two in the morning.

Kyungsoo jotted down the directions onto a piece of paper before leaving the hotel lobby as discreetly as possible. Apparently, it wouldn’t take more than a half-hour by foot to the airport, leaving Kyungsoo more hopeful that he would be able to make it there in time.

Because of the time, it was rather quiet outside, although there were still numerous taxis lined up outside waiting to pick up gamblers and the hotel’s patrons. The hotel’s casino was open 24 hours daily and when Kyungsoo passed by it, he could still see people coming in and out of the establishment.

The roads were a bit deserted and there wasn’t exactly a pedestrian walkway so Kyungsoo had to walk down the side of the road, thankful it was this late at night so there were fewer cars around. He didn’t feel too alone though because of the many hotels and casinos around within the vicinity.

With the directions scribbled onto the paper, Kyungsoo continued his way down the directions he was given, walking as fast as possible without overexerting himself too.

Kyungsoo knew he had made it outside of the Cotai strip when he began to see shop buildings instead of casino hotels. Now, there were actual pedestrian walkways for him to travel on instead of roads meant for cars.

Some of the shops, especially the fast-food outlets were open 24 hours, so there were actually some people around the area.

Kyungsoo did come across the thought of just storming into the McDonald’s, going up to the cashier and then telling that his friend and their family had been kidnapped and that he needed to call the police.

Kyungsoo knew they’d probably help him if he asked but he then remembered Baekhyun’s threat, especially when knowing exactly the kind of business Baekhyun meddled with.

But even if Kyungsoo followed the instructions Baekhyun gave him, there was no way to really guarantee Junmyeon and his family’s safety.

Kyungsoo’s common sense was telling him to ask for help to call the police and not go along with Baekhyun’s orders because it could get worse from there.

While contemplating the decision outside the glass doors of the brightly lit McDonald’s outlet, Kyungsoo did not even realize that a car had pulled up at the curb behind him, which was soon followed by someone loudly calling out his name.

“Kyungsoo!”

Kyungsoo whipped his head around so fast that he almost gave himself whiplash. If it weren’t for the familiar voice, Kyungsoo would have been even more terrified than he already was to have someone recognize and knows his name, being in a foreign place and whatnot with a mafia out to hunt his ass.

“Chanyeol!” Kyungsoo instantly gasped, seeing Chanyeol stomp out onto the curb to pull Kyungsoo by the arm and back into the car.

Grateful that he at least wasn’t being stuffed in a body bag in the trunk of a car, Kyungsoo caught his breath in the back seat of the air-conditioned car.

Sehun was also here too now. Here in Macau, the driver’s seat was on the right side, unlike in Korea where it was on the left, which confused Kyungsoo a bit at first as to who was driving if Sehun was on the passenger side and Chanyeol was here at back with him.

Chanyeol sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead, “Didn’t I tell you to stay put in the hotel? Why did you leave? What if I didn’t find you on the way back? How bad do you want McDonald’s?”

“I don’t want McDonald’s,” Kyungsoo answered nonchalantly, taken aback by the question he didn’t expect, then remembering his predicament as he grabbed Chanyeol by the tie, “Oh my god, Chanyeol!”

“What!?” Chanyeol blurted out, alarmed at Kyungsoo’s sudden action.

“It’s Baekhyun! He has my friend, Junmyeon and his family. Baekhyun is going to kill them if I don’t show up at the Macau Container Port by three in the morning,” Kyungsoo panicked, looking at the time on the car’s dashboard which read 1:47 am, “Please, you have to drop me off there before then. Junmyeon’s children are still in pre-school. I can’t live with myself if something bad happened to them.”

Chanyeol looked angry but he had yet to say a single word as he inhaled sharply, closing his eyes and fisting up his palms. Honestly, Kyungsoo was a bit intimidated when Chanyeol was this serious, causing him to let go of Chanyeol’s tie.

Sehun was also looking back at Kyungsoo and Chanyeol from the rearview mirror. Sehun was just more used to dealing with Chanyeol.

“How do you know for sure that Baekhyun is telling you the truth? Do you have any evidence that he has your friend and his family?” Chanyeol questioned, a bit exasperatedly.

“Baekhyun called me through the hotel phone earlier. He knows our location and he even put Junmyeon over the phone. I could hear his wife and children in the background too. I don’t think he’s lying,” Kyungsoo stressed, feeling himself starting to cold sweat.

“Did he say where’s he’s holding them?” Chanyeol continued to ask.

“No,” Kyungsoo shook his head.

“What exactly did he tell you to do again? Why does he want you there? Tell me everything he told you,” Chanyeol demanded, his eyebrows furrowed.

Kyungsoo took a deep breath to compose himself before he started to answer, “Baekhyun called me at about a quarter past one in the morning and said that you sent me to follow him around to take pictures of Baekhyun so you could turn him in to the police. He said we were both conspiring to take him down or something like that. I didn’t really understand what he meant but all I know is that he wants me alone down at the port by three in the morning or he’ll kill Junmyeon and his family.”

“God damn it,” Chanyeol swore, gritting his teeth.

“Sounds like he wants a hostage exchange situation and he’s trying to use Kyungsoo as a way to get to you,” Sehun voiced out his opinion.

“Of course,” Chanyeol hissed, leaning back against the seat with his arms folded over his chest, “He still thinks Kyungsoo is my lover so it’ll affect me and give Baekhyun a bargaining piece if he takes Kyungsoo.”

“Do you think that actually meeting Baekhyun and telling him this is just a big misunderstanding will work?” Sehun suggested.

“Unlikely for him to ever believe us. I find it hard to believe we’re in this too,” Chanyeol responded, “-but I don’t want this to go on any longer than it should and I certainly don’t want to involve innocent bystanders either. So it seems that I will actually have to go and meet Baekhyun. I knew he’d eventually find out where I was but I didn’t expect it this soon.”

Overhearing the conversation between Sehun and Chanyeol, Kyungsoo gulped. He felt that this was his entire fault.

All he ever wanted to do was find out why his family farmland was sold, only to end up discovering an entire underground mafia syndicate which now had involved innocent people into a dangerous situation.

It was too late to regret it now and Kyungsoo wanted to at least be responsible for the consequences of his actions. Kyungsoo thought that he could at least free Junmyeon and his family from this, even if he couldn’t say the same for his own fate.

Kyungsoo interjected between Sehun and Chanyeol’s conversation, his hand already gripping on the door handle, “I’ll go. You don’t have to, Chanyeol. I caused this mess so it must be me to clean it up. You’re right. This is just a big misunderstanding and besides, Baekhyun only wants me alone. He didn’t ask for you. So yeah, I’ll just go now. It was nice knowing you two- ”

Kyungsoo pulled the door handle and was about to push it open when Chanyeol climbed over to his side of the seat, over Kyungsoo’s lap and pulled the door back shut with Kyungsoo’s own hand still on the handle.

Sehun quickly locked all the doors once the door was shut again, trapping and preventing Kyungsoo from leaving. Sehun also began to slowly drive out from in front of the McDonald’s, presumably to go somewhere more secluded such as behind a building.

Chanyeol pushed Kyungsoo back to the seat, pinning him at the shoulders to the leather seat, as he straddled Kyungsoo’s lap to pin him down to the spot.

“Don’t make me turn on the child lock,” Chanyeol threatened, glancing over at the door and back at Kyungsoo, “You’re not going anywhere without me. We’ll go down to the container port _together_ ”.

“Baekhyun didn’t ask for you! Get off of me, old man,” Kyungsoo spat, squirming to not much avail as Chanyeol was considerably heavier and stronger for him to easily push off of himself.

“What do you mean old? Baekhyun is older than me,” Chanyeol actually looked offended as he continued to pin Kyungsoo down to the car seat.

“I have no time to argue about that, okay!” Kyungsoo sounded like he was going to cry now, “Please, just let me go. I can’t let my friend and his family die because of what I did. This is my fault and my mistake so please, just let me go.”

Kyungsoo actually began tearing up out of fear and Chanyeol surely noticed this.

Slowly, Chanyeol got off Kyungsoo and back down onto the empty space beside him. Chanyeol placed a hand on Kyungsoo’s thigh, squeezing it lightly as he apologized, “I’m sorry. It’s also my fault for approaching you and making it seem like we were an item, instead of just denying it to Baekhyun. We’ll go fix this now, okay?”

“-but he told me to go alone. What if Baekhyun hurts them if he saw that I came with you?” Kyungsoo attempted to hold back tears.

“Look,” Chanyeol pressed a finger below Kyungsoo’s chin to force the latter to face him, “He wants you so he can get to me. If he sees me with you, we’ll be cutting to the chase and giving him what he wants. It’ll be alright. Just stay beside me and you’ll be fine. Okay?”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo muttered, looking away from Chanyeol’s gaze.

Chanyeol pressed a quick kiss to the top of Kyungsoo’s forehead, slightly obscured by his growing bangs before turning to Sehun, “Alright, drive us there now. We have to make it there before three.”


	5. Destinations (Part 2)

Before two in the morning, they had already arrived at the gates of the Macau Container Port. Of course, it was closed at this time of the night and there was a security guard booth outside also to get pass through.

Chanyeol made a phone call to someone, conversing rather fluently in Mandarin, which impressed Kyungsoo to know that Chanyeol spoke multiple languages.

After a while, the gates were opened and the security guard actually smiled and waved at them to let them inside.

“I have connections too here in China,” Chanyeol simply answered, undoing the first few buttons of his shirt before removing his tie.

Kyungsoo only side-eyed Chanyeol, not really surprised that he would have connections all the way here too. After all, crime seemed to be universal and present in any country in the world at this point.

Sehun parked the car at an empty dock in the port. There were no ships and port crew around as no shipments were expected at this time of the day. Although, there was an abundance of shipping containers stacked around the area and some storage buildings, obscuring them from view. The port was adequately lit but it wasn’t too bright either.

Due to the proximity to the airport, there was the occasional plane loudly flying overheard them.

Sehun opened the glove compartment in the car to retrieve a handgun and a magazine before handing it to Chanyeol.

Chanyeol flipped his coat open to reveal a chest gun holster he was wearing underneath, which actually surprised Kyungsoo as he wasn’t really looking forward to a shootout. Chanyeol loaded the gun and fixed both the gun and the magazine onto the holster before buttoning up his coat back again.

“Good luck,” Sehun said, looking behind at both Chanyeol and Kyungsoo.

“Remember the plan,” Chanyeol replied, pushing the door open and asking Kyungsoo to come along with him.

Sehun drove away shortly after, leaving Chanyeol and Kyungsoo on the dock. Kyungsoo was admittedly nervous as he remained standing behind Chanyeol, who was standing with his arms crossed and frequently looked over his shoulder to make sure Kyungsoo was still there.

There was a moderately warm wind blowing over the water and around them. The view of the bright Macau skyline was visible at a distance across the water from where they were.

Chanyeol also kept looking at the time on his gold Rolex watch before crossing his arms again as he continued staring out at the water in only a certain direction.

Kyungsoo was too afraid to say anything so he clung onto the back of Chanyeol’s coat, fisting on the expensive fabric like a security blanket to keep himself grounded.

“Are you tired of standing? Do you want to sit down?” Chanyeol asked at one point, looking over his shoulder at Kyungsoo.

“It’s fine,” Kyungsoo responded, still clinging onto the back of Chanyeol’s coat, “Besides, there’s nowhere for me to sit on.”

Hearing that, Chanyeol began to unbutton his coat and Kyungsoo didn’t have to ask why. Of course, Chanyeol was planning to take off his coat that probably cost a few million won just for Kyungsoo to sit on.

Almost instantly, Kyungsoo protested and ran in front of Chanyeol to button it back with slight difficulty, “No! Keep it on, please. I’ve troubled you enough.”

Chanyeol chuckled, looking down at Kyungsoo who was still trying to button his coat back together with shaky hands.

Taking advantage of the proximity and position, Chanyeol pulled Kyungsoo into a hug, smashing the latter into his wide chest as he rested his palms on the small of Kyungsoo’s back a mere few inches from touching his butt.

  
Chanyeol continued laughing while Kyungsoo was still surprised and maybe a bit flustered from how touchy Chanyeol always seemed to be around him.

Kyungsoo was a bit thankful for that though, as it helped him forget all the troubles crushing him even if for a brief moment.

Kyungsoo even found himself smiling a bit, letting his head rest against Chanyeol’s shoulder. That was until Chanyeol whispered close to his ear to inform him that someone was already coming from them.

Quickly, Kyungsoo peeled himself off of Chanyeol. They stood beside each other as they looked out towards the water where a speedboat was fast approaching them.

“Is that them?” Kyungsoo asked, “Isn’t a bit too early?”

“You can always count on Baekhyun to be early,” Chanyeol noted, standing with his hands in the pockets of his trousers as the wind continued to blow into their faces.

Several minutes later filled with anticipation, the speedboat pulled up at the dock and a man in a black suit and sunglasses emerged from it, walking onto the dock and towards Chanyeol and Kyungsoo. Another man, the boat driver, remained on the boat.

“The boss only ordered for Do Kyungsoo alone,” The man affirmed, sternly, “Only he will be coming with us.”

“I know that,” Chanyeol confidently replied, one hand on Kyungsoo’s shoulder like an act of possessiveness, “-but tell your boss Park Chanyeol is here too and will be coming along. Consider it as a two-for-one package. He won’t say no.”

“Very well,” The man then pulled out a phone from the inner pocket of his coat before he made a phone call to who was presumably and very likely Baekhyun.

While the man was on the call with Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo remained where they were and watched on.

The man promptly got off the phone and announced what Chanyeol already expected to happen, “The boss says he’s more than happy to have the both of you. You two will come with us but you must be unarmed and no one else should be coming with you.”

“Of course,” Chanyeol smiled, lifting his hands up in the air as he allowed the man to conduct a general body check on him.

Kyungsoo saw as the man found Chanyeol’s gun and spare magazine, taking the weapon away from Chanyeol. Kyungsoo was actually worried as to how they were going to defend themselves now that the gun had been taken away and they were literally walking into the lion’s den.

Kyungsoo had no idea how they’d ever be able to resolve this but it seemed like Chanyeol had a plan and Kyungsoo was merely just following along, not like he really had any other choice.

After Chanyeol, the man also conducted a body search on Kyungsoo, only to find the paper scribbled with the directions to the airport in Kyungsoo’s pocket.

Then, they were both escorted to the speedboat and a bag was put over their heads, which completely blocked out all light although still being breathable.

Chanyeol held Kyungsoo’s hand the entire time and if it weren’t for that, Kyungsoo would have panicked enough to jump over the boat and into the cold waters despite not knowing how to swim, because he was just desperate to escape the situation.

Deep inside, Kyungsoo wondered if Chanyeol did this on a regular basis to be so calm and collected.

Kyungsoo was actually counting under the bag over his head throughout the whole boat journey. The engine of the speedboat was loud, the ride was sometimes shaky due to the waves and sometimes he could feel the spray of cold seawater on his skin.

Whether Kyungsoo’s calculations were accurate or otherwise, he counted 705 seconds from when the boat’s engine was started before the trip and when it was turned off near what was the destination they have arrived at.

The two of Baekhyun’s men that had come for them individually led both Chanyeol and Kyungsoo off of the boat and onto another flat ground surface.

Kyungsoo was separated from Chanyeol and he could feel his hands being tied behind him with something that felt like rope or a plastic zip tie. Kyungsoo had no idea where they were but since the journey didn’t take too long; they weren’t too far from the container port.

“It’ll be alright,” Chanyeol’s muffled voice was heard from behind the bag over his head as he was being led away.

Kyungsoo could only bite his lip and tremble slightly as he was taken away by the other man, made to walk down a distance and some steps until he was forced to sit onto what seemed like a chair with his hands still bound behind him.

Only then, the bag over his head was pulled off, or rather yanked off rather callously. Kyungsoo immediately squint his eyes and lowered his head down, because the sudden adjust to brightness hurt his eyeballs.

“Humph, so I finally get to see you in person,” A smooth voice was heard saying in a displeased manner.

Kyungsoo lifted his head slightly and peeked an eye open to see who he was sure to Baekhyun. Kyungsoo was sure of how Baekhyun looked like after all the stalking and pictures he took of the latter, despite never meeting face to face like this before.

Baekhyun had thick, medium-length wavy brown hair and he was wearing a shirt with the first row buttons undone, exposing the gold necklace he was wearing underneath. Baekhyun had his arms folded over his chest with a gun in one hand, Kyungsoo could see.

Kyungsoo sat up straight, looking upward at Baekhyun with a rather confused expression on his face because he didn’t know what to say or do.

They appeared to be in a large warehouse-like place with crates and storage containers surrounding them. The lighting was harsh and bright overheard.

There were at least three men standing around Baekhyun. Kyungsoo recognized one of them to be the same person who had come to collect him and Chanyeol, and judging from their body language, they were most likely Baekhyun’s guards.

Kyungsoo didn’t see Chanyeol anywhere in sight and he could only hope that Chanyeol was alright, although he had somewhat of faith in Chanyeol’s capability as he was seemingly experienced in this type of situation.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Baekhyun questioned, slightly taken aback at Kyungsoo’s reaction towards him, “You look like you’re in the middle of a math test or something.”

“Huh-what?” Kyungsoo himself was at a loss for words, stuck in a haze of confusion for a moment.

“Never mind,” Baekhyun scoffed, rolling his eyes.

Kyungsoo then immediately remembered why he was there in the first place and it sent his heartbeat racing, “Where are my friends and his family! I came here just as you asked me to. Please let them go now!”

“Oh, about that,” Baekhyun looked at his nails on one hand, as if he was feigning ignorance.

“Where are they!? You said you won’t hurt them!” Kyungsoo demanded, almost lurching out of the chair if it weren’t for two men who had come around to hold him down.

“Don’t worry, they’re fine,” Baekhyun sounded annoyed as he explained, “They’re being somewhere else but they’re fine.”

“Well?” Kyungsoo yelled, “I’ve done my part of the deal by coming here before the time you set. I even have Chanyeol with me. Now do yours and let my friends go!”

“Fine,” Baekhyun gave in, almost reluctantly, as he walked over to one of his men who promptly handed Baekhyun a phone.

Kyungsoo saw Baekhyun talking over the phone with the gun still in his hand, although Kyungsoo wasn’t able to hear most of the conversation.

Baekhyun, with a rather annoyed face, then walked over to where Kyungsoo was and pressed the phone to his ear.

“It’s your friend,” Baekhyun stated, holding the phone up against Kyungsoo’s ear.

“Junmyeon!” Kyungsoo immediately blurted out, “Are you alright? Where are your wife and children?”

Kyungsoo immediately heaved a sigh of relief when he heard Junmyeon speaking back, telling Kyungsoo that he, his wife and children were just shaken but unharmed and that they were being released as they spoke.

“I told you,” Baekhyun mouthed to Kyungsoo who glared up at the latter momentarily.

Junmyeon then asked about Kyungsoo’s whereabouts and if he was alright, still confused. But before Kyungsoo could give an answer, the phone was snatched away and Baekhyun hung up the call.

Baekhyun spoke up, handing back the phone to one of his men, “I only let your friends go for accountability because we have a deal for that. I can’t say the same about your boyfriend, Chanyeol, though.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Kyungsoo corrected, followed by a sigh as he slouched his shoulders forward at the misunderstanding that had been going on for a while and had landed him in a lot of hot water.

“Yeah, sure,” Baekhyun replied sarcastically, “Of course he isn’t your boyfriend. I mean, why would he drag you all the way to a different country to hide and keep you safe if he wasn’t?”

“This is all just a misunderstanding!” Kyungsoo yelled, “I have nothing to do with this! I barely even know Chanyeol that well. You have to let me go.”

“We’ll have to see about that,” Baekhyun stated, turning to one of his men and giving out instructions.

Minutes later, two of Baekhyun’s men appeared, dragging Chanyeol in between them by the arm.

Kyungsoo gasped when he laid eyes on Chanyeol, bound by rope and looking rather beaten up. There was a noticeable gash on the bridge of his nose and what appeared to slight bloodstains on his forehead too. His cheeks were dirtied as if his face had been pressed down to the ground.

Obviously, Chanyeol had been roughed up a little by Baekhyun’s men but yet he had a smile on his face.

Baekhyun’s men pushed Chanyeol to his knees on the ground. Chanyeol looked towards Kyungsoo, still bound to the chair and assured him, “I got this, Soo. Don’t worry; I’ll get us out of here.”

Baekhyun glanced over at Kyungsoo and then back at Chanyeol, “Kyungsoo here says you aren’t his boyfriend and he has nothing to do with you because he wants me to let him go. Is that right?”

Kyungsoo could only gulp, staring back at Chanyeol while feeling rather guilty and lost.

Chanyeol sighed dejectedly, shaking his head, “He’s right. Kyungsoo isn’t my boyfriend. He has nothing to do with this so please, just let him go. He’s afraid and he won’t talk about this incident ever to anyone.”

“See! I told you!” Kyungsoo butted in, exasperatedly, even if it meant throwing Chanyeol under the bus. But at that moment, Kyungsoo decided to be a little bit self-centered to save his own ass.

“Oh, is it?” Baekhyun addressed Chanyeol, “But one of my men working in the same press company as Kyungsoo has seen him with you several times so you two obviously know each other. Also, Kyungsoo’s job scope doesn’t involve following people like me around. He’s in entertainment and he’s supposed to take pictures of celebrities and write articles about them. Not people like me,” Baekhyun pointed to himself with the gun still in his hand threateningly.

Baekhyun then continued, choosing to address Chanyeol still, “Then why would Kyungsoo be following after someone like me if he wasn’t following your instructions then? Don’t lie to me, Chanyeol. I know you sent Kyungsoo to expose me in the news so you can then let Sejun Corporations take over the Sangchal group.”

With the gun gripped in his dominant right hand, and a finger hovering over the trigger, Baekhyun pointed the barrel towards Chanyeol who was still kneeling on the cemented ground of the warehouse.

“I should just get rid of you right now while I can, before you cause me any more trouble in the future,” Baekhyun mentioned out loud.

“No!” Kyungsoo yelled in a fit of panic at the thought of Chanyeol getting killed, fighting against his restraints and the men holding him down, “Please, don’t shoot him. I was the one who followed you around and took pictures of you on my accord. Nobody, not even Chanyeol told me to do that. I was just tracking down clues so I can find out the real reason behind why my family’s land was sold off. I have no intention to expose you or whatsoever.”

“You’re not even making any sense right now,” Baekhyun was perplexed himself.

“He’s right, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol raised his voice but he was nowhere close to even being mildly irritated, “He just wants to solve a personal family matter. He only ended up involved in this by accident. Kyungsoo has no part in all of this.”

“Oh, shut up,” Baekhyun snapped, “I don’t care if you two or dating or not but you’re equally as annoying. First I’m going to kill you and then I’m going to sell Kyungsoo to some Chinese triad where they’ll probably harvest his organs to be sold on the black market.”

Kyungsoo’s mouth hung open at Baekhyun’s statement to have him sold off to a triad and later have his organs harvested. Kyungsoo sure as hell did not want that and he didn’t know whether to fear for himself or for Chanyeol who had the barrel of a loaded gun now pointed to his head.

Kyungsoo was sobbing dryly as he attempted to struggle through the restraints in a somewhat futile effort to stop Baekhyun from killing Chanyeol. Kyungsoo just knew that he would never be able to live with himself if that should ever happen.

In the midst of Kyungsoo’s struggle, Baekhyun ignoring Kyungsoo and Chanyeol glaring up at the hollow barrel of the gun pointed in front of his face; all the bright floodlights within the warehouse turned off with an audible loud sound when it did so.

Baekhyun was heard gasping in surprise and his men were also heard fussing around to find him or another light source.

One of Baekhyun’s men managed to use his phone as a light source as they surrounded Baekhyun in a circle to protect him in the dark, leaving Chanyeol and Kyungsoo mostly unguarded.

“What is going on!?” Baekhyun snapped, “Get the lights back on!”

“We’re working on it now, sir,” One of Baekhyun’s men replied.

The moment the lights turned on again in the warehouse, a loud slamming sound was heard at the other end followed by the revving of what sounded like a car’s engine and then loud commotion, as the containers and crates surrounding them were knocked over.

In the chaos, Kyungsoo’s chair was also knocked over and he fell onto the ground still in his restraints, unable to see what was going on behind him or even move from the spot.

“Stay put!” Chanyeol yelled at Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo wasn’t able to see where Chanyeol was and he could only yell back, “Okay!”

The sounds of the car engine rumbled on and approached closer until the vehicle itself came to a halt just meters behind from where Kyungsoo was lying on the ground still bound to a chair.

The persistent sounds of people shouting and fighting him remained. Unable to move, Kyungsoo could only close his eyes and brace himself for whatever it was coming towards him.

Kyungsoo was surprised to feel someone touching him by the shoulders, feeling like his heart had almost jumped out of his chest from just that. But he relaxed to see that it was Sehun, who quickly assured Kyungsoo of his presence before proceeding to cut him off from the ropes.

Once Sehun had freed Kyungsoo and helped him stand up, Kyungsoo was now finally able to see what was really going on.

Kyungsoo saw that a truck had been used to ram down the doors of the warehouse before it was driven inside, making a mess by knocking the containers and crates all over before stopping not far from where Kyungsoo was.

Kyungsoo also saw Baekhyun’s men passed out or being held down by another group of people who had come in with the truck.

Baekhyun himself was pushed to the ground, where he laid face flat with his hands pinned to his back.

Meanwhile, Chanyeol was standing beside this other man who was impeccably dressed entirely in black as they conversed with each other.

Chanyeol noticed Kyungsoo and walked over to him, eyeing him from head to toe and then back at Kyungsoo’s face. Chanyeol raised a hand to rub Kyungsoo’s cheek with a thumb, “Are you alright, Soo? Did that scare you? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Kyungsoo turned his head to the side, pushing away Chanyeol’s hand from his face as he was beginning to feel rather irritated, “What just happened?”

“I told you I had contacts in China,” Chanyeol confidently asserted, rubbing the back of his neck as he turned around to face this Chinese partner of his who was dealing with Baekhyun, “So I just called them to come in and help us. His name is Zhang Yixing. I do business with him often too.”

“How did they know where we were?” Kyungsoo grabbed onto the hem of his shirt as he asked.

“I planted a GPS tracker in your shirt while we were on the way here,” Chanyeol answered and explained, “You see, Yixing has some unfinished matters with Baekhyun. I don’t know what goes on between them but I know they have something going on. Since Baekhyun was giving us trouble, I purposely came all the way here to Macau where Yixing is, so I could also lure Baekhyun to Yixing. It’s like killing two birds with one stone. I get rid of Baekhyun from disturbing us and I get to help a business partner of mine for future dealings.”

Kyungsoo glared up at Chanyeol still partially in disbelief, “So we were just baits!?”

“You can say so,” Chanyeol shrugged.

“-but you almost got killed!” Kyungsoo raised his voice, tugging onto the front of Chanyeol’s shirt, “Do you know how dangerous and reckless that was!?”

“To be honest, I get into this kind of troubles regularly,” Chanyeol chuckled, lifting his arms up as if to surrender while Kyungsoo was shaking him.

Kyungsoo huffed and released Chanyeol from his grip, stomping off pass the mess of overturned containers and Baekhyun’s men being rounded up and tied down by Yixing’s men.

He completely ignored all of that and exited the warehouse through the doors that had been rammed over and walked towards the dock just outside.

Kyungsoo made his way near the edge of the water and sat down there on the gravel with his legs pressed up against his chest. 

Kyungsoo had a pout on his face as he was annoyed and irritated to no end but didn’t want to burst into anger. Kyungsoo hugged his legs and rested his chin on his knees as he gazed at the rippling waters under the dark of the night as a wind continued to blow over the water.

There was a different view of the Macau city skyline across the water compared to the one at the container port but they shouldn’t be too far off.

Kyungsoo was fed up and exhausted both emotionally and physically. All he wanted to do now was to go home. He had enough of Chanyeol and enough of all of this.

Certainly, this kind of life was just not cut out for him.

Chanyeol talked shortly to Yixing and Sehun after Kyungsoo stormed out from the warehouse, before excusing himself to go after Kyungsoo.

Chanyeol met Kyungsoo down at the dock at the edge of the water where the latter was still sitting on the ground and sulking. Chanyeol remained standing beside Kyungsoo, also facing the water and the shimmer of the Macau skyline.

Kyungsoo ignored Chanyeol’s presence, not even acknowledging it.

Chanyeol sighed, taking out a phone from his pocket which Sehun had handed back to him earlier on.

Chanyeol unlocked the phone and then handed it down to Kyungsoo, “I’ll get you a new phone as I promised but for now, you can use mine. Go ahead and call your friend. Don’t you want to know how he’s doing?”

Without even sparing a second thought, Kyungsoo snatched the phone from Chanyeol’s hand and quickly navigated to the call feature to dial Junmyeon’s number; one of the only few numbers other than his own which Kyungsoo recognized by heart, thanks to always having to call the latter through the office phone.

Junmyeon answered the phone after a few rings with a rather confused tone, “Hello, who is this?”

“Junmyeon!” Kyungsoo bolted up, putting one hand down on the gravel to keep his balance, “It’s me, Kyungsoo! Oh my god, where are you and the kids right now? Are you alright?”

“Kyungsoo! They let me and my family ago. They dropped us off in front of some mall and then drove away,” Junmyeon explained, “We just got home and my wife and I were just talking about to go to the police station because we were worried about you.”

“What, why?” Kyungsoo replied hurriedly, “No, don’t go to the police. I am alright.”

Before Junmyeon could say anything else further, his wife who was standing nearby him snatched the phone to talk to Kyungsoo too.

Although they still had no idea why they were kidnapped and held hostage by Baekhyun’s men, they did know it had something to do with Kyungsoo and were hence worried for him now that they were released, because they were aware of the condition being Kyungsoo turning himself in.

Kyungsoo spent some time explaining to Junmyeon and his wife over the loudspeaker about how they ended up in the mess because of him. When Kyungsoo mentioned Chanyeol and Sejun Corporations and whatnot, Junmyeon seemed to be able to understand too since he had been with Kyungsoo on several stakeouts and knew about the connections with the mafia.

Kyungsoo apologized to Junmyeon and his family for involving them in his problems and assured them that he was alright, and that he would be back soon although he wasn’t sure when or how.

After the phone call, Kyungsoo stood up on his feet and then handed the phone back to Chanyeol, who was silently waiting and standing beside him the entire time.

It was already dawn and although the sun hadn’t risen yet, the previously black sky was beginning to turn blue and the clouds- orange. The dock they were on was located at the river mouth where it connected to the sea, giving them wider scenery of the ocean out front.

Kyungsoo was still partially sulking, hugging his legs to his chest as he gazed out at the rising sun over the water.

Chanyeol was standing beside him with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, letting the wind blow on his face and through his hair.

“Chanyeol…,” Kyungsoo trailed off, finally speaking to Chanyeol.

“Yeah?” Chanyeol replied, looking downwards at Kyungsoo with a half-smile on his lips, somewhat pleased to know Kyungsoo still wanted to talk to him.

“I would like to go home now if that’s possible, please,” Kyungsoo requested, still turned away from Chanyeol, trying to be as formal and polite as possible in hopes that it would increase his chances.

“Of course,” Chanyeol smiled, looking back out towards the ocean again, “I’ll get a private jet arranged to bring us back to Seoul as soon as possible. I’ll get you home before the day ends.”

“Thanks,” Kyungsoo muttered lowly but enough for Chanyeol to overhear.

Chanyeol continued to smile.


	6. Values (Part 1)

Before they left Macau by private jet, Chanyeol brought Kyungsoo out for breakfast at a rather fancy restaurant. But Kyungsoo was still too exhausted to even be excited or in awe at the expensive breakfast.

Frankly, he’d rather be back home and finally redeeming that last stamp for a free coffee than spending an entire’s day wage on just a plate of overpriced toast and sausages- even if Chanyeol was the one paying.

Kyungsoo did eat his breakfast though, in silence with a straight face. Halfway through the plate, he was basically just forcing himself to eat before he got a stomachache from going without food.

Chanyeol also seemed to notice Kyungsoo’s demeanor and chose not to bother him as much as he usually would, not wanting to irritate Kyungsoo further.

Kyungsoo went to sleep the moment the plane was off the runway and cruising in the air, where he remained sleeping for the next three hours until it was almost time to land.

Still groggy and half-asleep, without even asking, Kyungsoo simply followed Chanyeol to a car at the airport, with Sehun being the driver as usual.

After all that he’d been through, Kyungsoo seemed to have gained somewhat of trust towards Chanyeol. At least, Chanyeol had somewhat proven his reliability at resolving the dilemma he and Kyungsoo were in.

Kyungsoo was awake during the ride home, which he spent mostly in silence while gazing out of the window of the moving car.

So, it didn’t take long for Kyungsoo to notice that they weren’t driving in the direction of either his apartment or his office or any other place he could think of where he would be dropped off. Instead, Sehun seemed to be driving heading out of the city limits and down the interprovincial highway.

“Where are we going?” Kyungsoo asked, alerted by the route diversion and finally looking away from the window to address Sehun or Chanyeol.

“We’re going somewhere out of town. You’ll know when we get there,” Chanyeol answered without looking up from his phone, sitting at the other end of the car from Kyungsoo.

“But you said you were going to send me home!” Kyungsoo attested, somewhat annoyed already.

“Well, you can consider this place as your home too,” Chanyeol reasoned.

“-Just tell me where you’re taking me!” Kyungsoo demanded.

“Alright, fine,” Chanyeol sighed, pushing his hair back, “We’re going to Namwon in the North Jeolla province. That’s where your family’s farmland which I bought is at, remember?”

Kyungsoo relaxed a bit once he heard a definitive answer for once, although he still remained confused, “-but why are we going there?”

“You said yourself that you hadn’t been back there in years so I thought I’d bring you to see it,” Chanyeol answered, “I mean- well, I do own the land now and all the surrounding region so I am allowed to do as I please.”

“Whatever,” Kyungsoo pouted, sulking and folding his arms over his chest as he turned to look out of the window again and away from Chanyeol’s direction.

While Kyungsoo was slightly displeased at Chanyeol, who seemed to like bringing Kyungsoo to other places without his consent or without consulting him beforehand, Kyungsoo didn’t deny the excitement he felt in his heart at finally being able to visit his family’s farmland again.

This time, it was Chanyeol who fell asleep during the almost three hours ride to Nowon. Thankfully, it was a weekday and a low peak season, so the highways were clear and traffic was smooth flowing.

Along the way, Sehun stopped the car to refuel and Kyungsoo took the opportunity and Chanyeol’s credit card to splurge on snacks and magazines to read for the rest of the journey, which was rather boring without a phone to fiddle around with.

Sehun also knew the way there as he had also driven Chanyeol there during the sale and purchase agreement process several months ago.

At around six in the evening, about an hour before sunset, they arrived outside the gates of what used to be the Do family's farmland.

Sehun parked at the side of the two-lane road and Kyungsoo exited the car to have a better look while it was still bright outside.

Kyungsoo almost felt like crying and had his breath taken away when he saw the place that used to hold memories of his childhood and of his beloved deceased grandparents.

The farmland was around 4 acres with a fence surrounding the perimeter. There was the farmhouse at the far end of the land from the road with a forest growing behind and a mountain range visible in the further distance.

There also used to be trees and vegetable patches growing on the land but it was now just overgrown weeds and grass.

There were also a few other buildings that Kyungsoo remembered to be the storage barn and the animal barns from when the farm was still running. The buildings had since been boarded up and locked up.

Kyungsoo couldn’t even go inside to visi even if he wanted to.

Sehun waited outside of the car with Kyungsoo, who took his time to just look at the farmland from behind the fence and reminisce.

Chanyeol woke up shortly later to see that they had arrived and left the car to join the other two outside.

“So, what do you think?” Chanyeol questioned, leaning against the car.

“Nothing actually,” Kyungsoo simply answered, actually being honest, “I guess this is the closure I need to accept that my family’s farmland has really been sold off and now belongs to you.”

“I’m glad it helps,” Chanyeol added, looking out towards the farmland too.

After a brief moment of silence, Chanyeol spoke up again, “You know, I have a confession to make.”

“What is it?” Kyungsoo turned to look at Chanyeol, with a warm wind blowing through and the setting sun’s rays glistening like gold in the sky.

“I lied about not knowing why your uncle gave up the land for sale. He actually told me why when I agreed to buy it but I felt bad for you so I didn’t tell you that at first,” Chanyeol admitted.

Kyungsoo immediately asked, “So, what was it?”

“Your uncle racked up a gambling debt and was about to be declared bankrupt. So he turned to my company for a loan to settle his debts. But I run a financing company and I cannot just loan out money to a client with a bad credit history like that. So he sold off this land to me for the money, “ Chanyeol revealed, taking off his coat and folding it over his forearm, “I just didn’t tell you because you didn’t seem to want to believe that your family had really sold it off. You were pretty adamant that I was forcing your family to sell it because I had an interest in it for some reason- which I don’t. It didn’t seem like my problem at the time to convince you otherwise.”

Kyungsoo dryly chuckled, “I guess all the mess we got into was mostly my fault.”

“Maybe,” Chanyeol supposed, looking at Kyungsoo and then smiling, “Let’s go home for real now. I did promise to bring you back before the day ends and we still have about six hours until then. Unless you want to stay here for the night, of course.”

“Yeah,” Kyungsoo said solemnly, looking to the ground and back up again for the last time at the farmland his family used to own.

Tired from all the traveling, Kyungsoo chose to stay in Namwon with Chanyeol for the night before planning to return to Seoul the next day.

Chanyeol booked two rooms at a traditional-style hotel with architecture, furniture, and design made to replicate Korea several hundred years ago.

Kyungsoo was mildly annoyed to find out about Chanyeol only booking two rooms, with one for Sehun and the other one which he had to share with Chanyeol. The room didn’t even have two beds but one meant for sharing. Of course, Chanyeol had done this on purpose.

At this point, Kyungsoo was hardly surprised anymore. Both he and Chanyeol were well aware and acknowledged the degree of attraction they had towards each other.

In an ideal world then maybe, it was the right time to finally act upon on that attraction.

After a few glasses of champagne and expensive room service dinner from the hotel, Kyungsoo announced that he was ready to go to bed before nine in the evening.

Kyungsoo wasn’t exactly that tired anymore but he was determined to get into bed before Chanyeol did, knowing that they’d have to share it that night. Because if that was the unavoidable case, then Kyungsoo wanted to be asleep by the time Chanyeol went to sleep too, so he could avoid the latter and possibly prevent an awkward situation.

Chanyeol didn’t protest either when Kyungsoo quickly climbed onto the bed, dressed only in his boxers under the hotel’s night robe. Chanyeol was equally as tired and exhausted himself, not having the opportunity of a good night’s rest for two days now.

Chanyeol simply sighed, sitting at the edge of his side of the bed, as he loosened the buttons on his collar and cuffs.

Kyungsoo was laying down on his back and was about to close his eyes and pretend to be asleep already when he caught Chanyeol undressing at the edge of the bed. 

When Chanyeol was taking off his shirt, sliding the clothing down his muscular and well defined back, Kyungsoo took notice of the tattoos on Chanyeol’s back and on his forearms. Kyungsoo never knew Chanyeol had tattoos and this was his first time finding out about it but the designs seemed a little too familiar.

Out of curiosity and forgetting that he was pretending to be asleep, Kyungsoo sat up against the headboard of the bed and asked, “What kind of business did you say you ran again?”

A shirtless Chanyeol looked over his shoulder at Kyungsoo and then down at the tattoo on his back and arms as he understood why Kyungsoo was prompted to ask such a thing.

“Well, what do you think it is?” Chanyeol returned the question, looking ahead and away from Kyungsoo, wanting to hear what Kyungsoo thought.

“You did say Sejun Corporations is a financing company and I know that it is a legitimate one. But it is an unspoken truth that most privately held financing companies in this country are fronts for a larger and illegal money laundering scheme. Also, I’ve seen tattoos like yours on the back of some known mafia members who were caught and then published in the news,” Kyungsoo pointed out, “I work in journalism, you know. I know a lot about what goes on.”

“Of course you would know,” Chanyeol responded, standing up from the bed as he looked down upon Kyungsoo, with his hands on his hips.

Kyungsoo added, “Besides, it’s clear that you and Baekhyun have dealings with each other. So, obviously, you have connections with the mafia.” Kyungsoo then sighed, running his fingers through his hair, “Forget it, why did I even ask when I clearly knew the answer already?”

“Maybe it’s because you wanted to know more about me?” Chanyeol deduced, smiling as he walked around the bed and sat at the edge of the mattress near where Kyungsoo was laying down on.

Kyungsoo crossed his arms over his chest and turned his head away, “Whatever. It’s not like I could have you even if I wanted. We’re worlds apart, you and I.”

“That may be true,” Chanyeol partially agreed, pressing his hand down on the mattress on the opposite side from Kyungsoo, effectively caging Kyungsoo under his arm as he leaned his face down closer, “-but yet we’re both here on the same bed just inches from each other. How is that being worlds apart when I can feel the heat of your skin on mine?”

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo continued to pout, sulking a bit.

Chanyeol stuck out another hand and pressed a finger under Kyungsoo’s chin, pushing Kyungsoo’s face gently to meet his as their gazes locked to each other under the dimmed hotel room lighting.

Surprisingly being honest, Chanyeol answered, “Yes, Sejun Corporations was once part of the Sangchal Group and we were hence directly affiliated to the mafia. But my father broke free from the Sangchal Group a few years before he died. He didn’t really want to do that life of smuggling drugs and guns and whatnot anymore. But once you join the mafia, you cannot really leave. So we were still forced to finance and launder money out for the Sangchal group in exchange for not having to be involved in anything else they do. It was the only way out of there.”

Kyungsoo looked up into Chanyeol’s eyes before looking away with mixed emotions.

“Are you disappointed to hear that?” Chanyeol pulled away from Kyungsoo, sitting up at the edge of the bed.

“No,” Kyungsoo answered after a pause, chuckling dryly and feigning his confidence, “Why would I be? It’s not like I didn’t know about that from the beginning.”

“Well, that makes it easier if you know then,” Chanyeol smiled slyly as he teased Kyungsoo; “I went through a lot of trouble and spent a lot of money on you.”

Kyungsoo turned to look at Chanyeol this time, with the feeling like he knew where this was going.

Chanyeol leaned back and then stretched out a hand with his palm facing Kyungsoo, “Since you know I run a financing company and make money off of interest repayments, you’ll have to pay me with interest for the costs of rescuing and keeping you safe. Private flights and five-star hotel suites don’t come cheap, you know.”

Kyungsoo would have thought Chanyeol was serious if it weren’t for the playful and mischievous smirk he had on his face. Although there was this slight worry at the back of his head that Chanyeol could be serious and really expected all that money back.

Playing along, Kyungsoo joked, “Well, you know I don’t have much money. I’m not sure if I can pay it all to you in one lump sum. Perhaps we could discuss a loan repayment plan?”

Chanyeol continued teasing, “I’d need collateral in that case though, so I can ensure I won’t be losing out. Do you have anything valuable you want to put up for collateral?”

“I don’t really have anything. I rent my apartment and I don’t have a car or any form of saving bonds either,” Kyungsoo shook his head, feeling a bit melancholic when it reminded him of his family’s farmland. Kyungsoo paused, biting his lower lip as he looked up towards Chanyeol, “I guess the only valuable thing I can give you is…myself.”

“I’ll have that then,” Chanyeol smiled, cupping Kyungsoo’s face between his palms as he leaned in for a kiss.

Instinctively, Kyungsoo closed his eyes and tilted his head as he parted his lips so Chanyeol could gain access to his mouth.

Chanyeol’s hands move down to the back of Kyungsoo’s nape, supporting Kyungsoo’s head up as he continued to kiss the latter.

Kyungsoo gripped onto Chanyeol’s broad shoulder, feeling Chanyeol’s bare skin under his palms without the restriction of clothing.

“Let me make you feel good,” Chanyeol purred, pulling away from the kiss momentarily as he ghosted warm air against Kyungsoo’s plump lips.

Kyungsoo nodded, muttering a low, “Yes.”

Chanyeol moved his hands lower to undo the hotel’s night robe which Kyungsoo was wearing, untying the bow on the front to reveal Kyungsoo’s bare and flushed chest.

Kyungsoo was slightly abashed and turned to look away to the side when Chanyeol was pulling off the nightrobe from his figure. It wasn’t that of Kyungsoo to be shy but he couldn’t help it when Chanyeol’s gaze was so dark and heavy upon him.

Even with the boxers still on and preventing him from being completely naked in front of Chanyeol, Kyungsoo already felt as if he was all stripped and bare just from Chanyeol’s gaze on him.

Carefully, Chanyeol shifted their positions so Kyungsoo was now lying down on the bed with the pillow supporting his head.

Kyungsoo’s legs were slightly spread out and Chanyeol pushed them even wider, so he could kneel and settle between those thick thighs, framing Kyungsoo with his own larger body.

“You have no idea how long I’ve imagined to have you under me like this,” Chanyeol confessed, a smirk forming on his lips as he pressed a kiss between Kyungsoo’s breasts.

Chanyeol moved his head down lower, his teeth lightly scraping against Kyungsoo’s bosom as his mouth made its way down to the nipple, leaving behind a trail of saliva and slightly red teeth marks.

Kyungsoo shuddered when he felt Chanyeol’s canine teeth grazing against his nipple before it was engulfed completely between Chanyeol’s lips.

Kyungsoo’s hand flew to hold onto the back of Chanyeol’s head, gasping and feeling shyer when Chanyeol complimented him. Honestly, Kyungsoo didn’t know how weak he was towards praises and he was just now discovering this.

“God, I just want to take you right now,” Chanyeol cooed, slipping his hand down the waistband of Kyungsoo’s boxers.

Kyungsoo wanted to do more than just lay there and let Chanyeol have him but his brain was fried and he couldn’t even think to do much. On the other hand, Chanyeol was more than pleased to do all the work since Kyungsoo was his “prize” for that evening.

Chanyeol sat back up on the bed on his knees, as he pulled down Kyungsoo’s boxers with a swift hand, where it was then tossed onto the floor. Taking this opportunity, Chanyeol also undid the belt on his trousers before stripping himself, joining in on the nudity.

Chanyeol enjoyed the sight of Kyungsoo now stark naked on the bed with a heaving chest and flushed cheeks. He, even more, enjoyed the view of Kyungsoo’s half-erect cock with beads of pre-cum beginning to form at the slit.

Then, Chanyeol sucked on a few of his fingers before sticking out his index finger and bringing it down to run the digit against the underside of Kyungsoo’s cock.

Kyungsoo exhaled through his nose because he was biting his lips, restraining a moan when he felt Chanyeol’s hand on his cock.

Chanyeol stroked Kyungsoo’s cock with his saliva-lubricated hand, pressing his thumb down onto the slit and aided by the pre-cum to make things smoother. 

“Is this your first time bottoming?” Chanyeol asked, pulling his hand away from now Kyungsoo’s erect cock.

“I did it once with a fling but that was a long time ago and it didn’t even feel good,” Kyungsoo answered.

“I’ll make you feel good then,” Chanyeol reassured, soft yet sultry as he left the bed to grab a paper bag the busboy had delivered to their room earlier on.

Kyungsoo lifted his head to look when Chanyeol returned to the bed, seeing packets of condoms and a bottle of lube being taken out from the paper bag.

Of course, Chanyeol was already looking forward and expecting sex so he was prepared for it. It sort of seemed sleazy to Kyungsoo but with all the blood in his brain rushing down to his cock, a lot of his reason was thrown out of the window and momentarily forgotten.

A generous amount of lube was poured onto his fingers before Chanyeol proceeded to finger and stretch Kyungsoo’s hole open, starting with a finger and slowly adding them as he went on.

Kyungsoo lifted his legs, holding them open and pressed to his chest to give Chanyeol better access to his ass. Kyungsoo knew he was being really lazy with this but he could hardly care in the heat of the moment.

Kyungsoo moaned softly, trying to keep his voice low despite the privacy because he was still scared of being overheard.

It was not the first time Kyungsoo had his ass fingered and he had done it to himself many times before but having someone else’s fingers up in there was certainly a whole new and different euphoric experience.

“You’re doing so well,” Chanyeol continued to praise, pressing a kiss between Kyungsoo’s breasts while his fingers worked on Kyungsoo’s insides.

When Chanyeol felt Kyungsoo loosen up against the three fingers he had circling the latter’s hole, Chanyeol slipped his fingers out and sat back against his ankles, pulling Kyungsoo’s legs into his own hands and spreading the latter’s lower limbs apart.

“What are you doing?” Kyungsoo asked, partly embarrassed at Chanyeol just lifting his legs up and open, “I feel like a woman at a gynecology exam.”

“Oh, really?” Chanyeol darkly chuckled, lightly grinding his hips against Kyungsoo’s crotch area. Even with minimal physical stimulation to his own cock, Chanyeol was already hard.

Kyungsoo attempted to pull his legs back to himself, feeling rather shameful at being so exposed by the way Chanyeol was holding him open.

Chanyeol had a firm grip though and Kyungsoo’s attempts were futile especially in the position he was in, where it would be tough to even push Chanyeol off of him.

Kyungsoo draped his arms over his face defensively, not wanting Chanyeol to see him flushed, embarrassed and ashamedly turned on at being so exposed.

When Kyungsoo felt the mattress shift and Chanyeol moving, the breath in his throat hitched and Kyungsoo gasped out in surprise, not knowing what he expected.

Only to find out that Chanyeol had instead moved slightly backward and leaned down to press a kiss on the skin of Kyungsoo’s inner thigh. 

“Don’t be shy,” Chanyeol murmured with his lips ghosting against Kyungsoo’s inner thigh, “You are fine as it is.”

Kyungsoo lifted the arms over his face so he could look up, blinking back some tears that formed at the corner of his eyes. Kyungsoo was neither afraid nor sad. He was simply overwhelmed at everything that had happened in the past few days. At the same time, Chanyeol lifted himself up again, so that he was kneeling on the bed in between Kyungsoo’s legs.

“Ah, thanks-,” Kyungsoo was cut off before he could even finish forming a sentence by the feeling of something much larger and firm pressing at the tight right of muscles

Chanyeol was guiding his cock inside Kyungsoo with a hand.

Kyungsoo quivered at the sensation of Chanyeol’s cock being slowly pushed inside him. Kyungsoo wasn’t even sure if Chanyeol had even put a condom on because of how fast everything seemed to move.

Kyungsoo’s eyes shot wide and round in surprise at the feeling of his hole being stretched that wide for the first time in all his years of being alive. Kyungsoo’s previous sex partner and his dildos didn’t prepare for him for a cock this big.

Once Chanyeol’s cock was almost fully sheathed inside Kyungsoo, Chanyeol moved his hands to grab onto Kyungsoo’s hips before slamming his hips forward in a sudden thrust, which sent the bed frame squeaking beneath them.

“Oh my god,” Kyungsoo continued to cry out as Chanyeol continued slamming into him, making him feel so full and constricted inside there.

Kyungsoo’s hands flew up to grab onto Chanyeol’s shoulder, holding onto them tightly but not wanting to hurt nor scratch Chanyeol with his nails either.

Chanyeol was less verbal than Kyungsoo was but he was gasping and breathing more heavily than earlier as he continued to thrust into Kyungsoo in a rhythm he had established.

Leaning down, Chanyeol kissed Kyungsoo on the jaw before whispering yet again, “You’re really cute you know, especially when you’re taking my cock like this.”

Kyungsoo gasped an “Ah” in surprise at the sudden praise which sent shivers tingling down his spine when he felt Chanyeol licking down the length of his throat.

Chanyeol let go of his hold on Kyungsoo’s hips so he could hover and pin down Kyungsoo’s wrists at either side of the pillow he was laying on.

“You’re doing so good,” Chanyeol praised as he began thrusting slower but harder into Kyungsoo, making squelching noises as their body fluids mingled with each other where there were joined.

Kyungsoo cried out again in pleasure as Chanyeol began to speed up his thrusts, wanting to grab onto Chanyeol for support but unable to do so because his wrists were still being pinned to the bed.

Kyungsoo dug the heels of his foot into the mattress, his toes curling and saliva drooling out of the corner of his mouth at the intense feeling of the dick being pounded into his ass.

Catching his breath when Chanyeol stilled for a moment and released the grasp on his wrists, Kyungsoo pressed a hand to Chanyeol’s shoulder and asked almost as if he was in a drunken state, “C-Chanyeol, did you put a condom on?”

“Yes, why?” Chanyeol returned the question, almost out of breath and flushed himself.

“Then you can cum inside me and not make a mess,” Kyungsoo slurred his sentence, holding onto Chanyeol’s shoulders again as his hips began to involuntarily buck against the cock halfway inside his ass.

“Of course,” Chanyeol obliged, smiling down at Kyungsoo, “You’re so adorable, I feel like I could just eat you up whole.”

Holding Kyungsoo by the thighs with his defined arms, Chanyeol engulfed Kyungsoo’s mouth in another kiss as he began to thrust in a downwards motion inside Kyungsoo, which stimulated Kyungsoo’s prostate and gave him an additional pleasure to what Kyungsoo was already getting.

Kyungsoo’s inner muscles unwittingly clenched on Chanyeol’s cock inside him due to the rush of sensations he was feeling all at once. Kyungsoo had one hand clinging onto Chanyeol’s shoulder and the other jerking off his own neglected cock pressed in between their bodies.

“You’re tight,” Chanyeol groaned, gutturally, as he pressed his face to the crook of Kyungsoo’s neck and continued thrusting.

“So good,” Kyungsoo moaned back, his head thrown back against the pillow and clinging onto Chanyeol almost for dear life.

  
Kyungsoo came first, trembling and shaking and almost shouting when he did so. Kyungsoo was really loud and he actually did worry about being overheard by people outside the hotel room but he wasn’t really in control of all the involuntary sounds he was making.

If the cum spurting out of Kyungsoo’s cock wasn’t enough evidence of his orgasm, Chanyeol could also tell from the way Kyungsoo’s inner walls squeezed and trembled around his cock, pushing Chanyeol also almost to that brink of ecstasy.

Chanyeol closed his eyes, throwing his head back and gasped at the way Kyungsoo’s walls were clamping down on him. He was so close and he could feel it too.

Kyungsoo’s cock softened up fast following his orgasm, leaving him feeling extra sensitive all the way down to his ass. If anything, it made Kyungsoo scream even louder in the throes of pleasure.

Chanyeol stilled his hips for a while to bend down and press his sweaty forehead against Kyungsoo, as their dark brown eyes fluttered to meet each other in a passionate gaze.

Chanyeol slipped in this thumb between Kyungsoo’s plump lips, pushing them apart and open as he pressed down on Kyungsoo’s tongue.

Kyungsoo panted, eyes still focused on Chanyeol when his mouth was pushed open, relaxing his jaw at the same time to help with that.

Then, with a thumb still inside Kyungsoo’s mouth, Chanyeol kissed him sloppily with an open mouth, sliding his tongue against Kyungsoo’s.

Kyungsoo moaned into the kiss, closing his eyes and opening them again in surprise when Chanyeol pulled away and flipped their positions in one swift and calculated move.

Kyungsoo landed face down on the pillow with his butt sticking out in the air. In this position, Kyungsoo wasn’t able to see neither Chanyeol’s face nor the expression he was making, but Kyungsoo was sure he heard Chanyeol chuckling about something behind him.

Before Kyungsoo could turn his head around to look or even ask, Chanyeol was already pressing his cock back inside Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo shuddered, grabbing and hugging onto the pillow beneath him when Chanyeol suddenly began to thrust sharply inside him with the sounds of their skins slapping harshly against each other.

Chanyeol was always doing something unexpected to catch Kyungsoo’s off guard. Honestly, Kyungsoo was already starting to get used to it now.

Kyungsoo moaned out loud as he felt a tingling sensation on his cock and balls from just anal stimulation. He was sure he wasn’t able to get hard again but he could feel pre-cum leaking from the slit of his cock again.

Kyungsoo knew Chanyeol was close when the latter began breathing heavily and the thrusts sped up. At some point, Kyungsoo was getting giddy from the constant movements and just wanted it to be over with already, knowing that he wasn’t going to be cumming for a second time even with the tingling sensation in his balls.

Feeling Chanyeol’s form lean over his back, Kyungsoo yelped when he felt a pair of teeth sinking down onto the sensitive flesh of his shoulder.

Chanyeol bit down on Kyungsoo hard enough to leave a mark but not enough to break his skin and make him bleed. Chanyeol didn’t want to hurt Kyungsoo; he just wanted to leave a visible mark to indicate Kyungsoo as his.

Then, with one final thrust, Chanyeol came inside the condom while still inside Kyungsoo as he let out a throaty moan before his hips stilled.

They remained like that for a while with Chanyeol leaning over Kyungsoo from behind, careful to not press too much of his greater weight down on Kyungsoo.

“You were great,” Chanyeol rasped, rubbing the back of Kyungsoo’s head.

“You too,” Kyungsoo smiled, pressing his cheek into the pillow.

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo went to sleep shortly after that, although Chanyeol later woke them up in the middle of the night to go at it again for a second round.

The next morning, Kyungsoo woke up still exhausted as hell while Chanyeol seemed refreshed, energetic and ready to get about the day; which led Kyungsoo to some wild theory that Chanyeol was a vampire who had sucked Kyungsoo of his life energy.

The following day, as promised, Chanyeol bought Kyungsoo a new phone and had even let Kyungsoo pick the model he wanted from the concept store.

Kyungsoo wanted to buy the most expensive one available out of spite for all the trouble Chanyeol had caused him but he felt bad about that and ended up with a mid-range phone that he liked.

Then, Chanyeol dropped Kyungsoo off at his apartment but not before slipping a contact card into the back of Kyungsoo’s jeans and giving him a pat on the butt.

At the curb in front of his apartment’s building before entering the lobby, Kyungsoo looked out one last time as the car drove off down the road.

Kyungsoo didn’t think that he would ever meet Chanyeol again after this. After all, their lives were completely worlds apart and Kyungsoo didn’t think he would ever have that chance again for their paths to cross.

Although Kyungsoo could do without all the trouble of being involved with Chanyeol, he did admit feeling a slight loss in his heart to face the reality that he would probably never get to see Chanyeol again. 

Well, just maybe, since Kyungsoo did actually have the option of contacting Chanyeol should he need to. 


	7. Values (Part 2)

Kyungsoo was gone from work for a few days and when he returned, he expected to find his stuff in a box and a letter of termination from the company for failing to show up without cause after three days straight.

Instead, Kyungsoo came back to work to find out that he was still very much employed. Junmyeon almost jumped into Kyungsoo’s arms and dragged him to a supply room so they could talk in privacy about the ordeal they had been in.

Junmyeon had apparently lied to the bosses that Kyungsoo was bedridden at home and even produced a fake doctor’s note to show as evidence, so Kyungsoo wouldn’t have action taken on him for being missing from work.

Taemin, the man working for Baekhyun, was missing from work himself and had not shown up since the day Kyungsoo was dragged off to Macau by Chanyeol. If anything, it was Taemin who was facing termination from work, although Kyungsoo knew now that this job was just a facade and that Taemin was really employed by the mafia.

Unlike him, Kyungsoo actually needed this job to pay his bills.

Although Junmyeon and his family were safe it seems, Kyungsoo still felt extremely guilty for putting them through such a traumatizing situation. Especially when Junmyeon and his wife seemed even more worried about Kyungsoo than themselves.

No amount of backstage passes, press edition freebies and meal vouchers Kyungsoo could give them would erase his guilt for putting an entire innocent family

The only way Kyungsoo could ever truly make his repentance was to make a promise to himself that he’d stay away from trouble and not actively pursue anything more that had ties to both Chanyeol and Baekhyun.

And Kyungsoo kept that promise for a few weeks at least, until Junmyeon came to him asking for help to expose a syndicate.

Apparently, some hooligan trouble makers in the neighborhood had formed their own small gang and were now extorting small businesses out of “protection money”. One of the businesses happened to be Junmyeon’s wife’s cafe.

The cafe was slowly gaining a loyal customer base and having members of the gang constantly hanging around there and causing trouble was bad for business, even if they were able to pay off the so-called “protection money”.

Afraid of retaliation if reported to the possibly corrupt local police, Junmyeon turned to Kyungsoo, hoping that he would expose them in the media and publicly call them out to force immediate action from a higher level of authority.

Not three weeks since Kyungsoo last saw Chanyeol, he found himself in the back of Junmyeon’s white van, parked behind a sleazy cheap motel, with a camera in hand.

It was around eight in the evening on a Tuesday. Junmyeon was in the driver’s seat with his head ducked down as Kyungsoo moved from window to window in the rear section of the van to shoot some photographic evidence from behind the tinted glass windows.

With Junmyeon’s knowledge of the neighborhood, he and Kyungsoo had managed to track down this local gang which seemed to be made out of four men in their twenties to forties and a corrupt low-ranked policeman who happened to be one of the gang member’s cousin.

The gang’s arsenal mostly consisted of their own vehicles, two baseball bats and some machetes. Their highest claim to date was probably extorting around 3 million won from a tuck shop owner, which they later wasted away on alcohol, cigarettes, and women.

Allegedly, they also often started fights among themselves and could not really see eye to eye even when pertaining to trivial matters.

Compared to the grander scale of crime gangs which Kyungsoo had the fair share of experiencing, this “gang” was nothing more than a nuisance. A part of Kyungsoo felt bad for them because they seemed pathetic if compared to what other crime organizations were doing, and how eerily professional and organized they were. Particularly, the ones which Chanyeol was involved in.

So much for staying out of trouble for Junmyeon’s sake though, because Kyungsoo was getting sucked right back into it by the very friend he was trying to protect. It was all ironic and dare he even say- humorous.

But Kyungsoo didn’t complain and went along with the whole plan for the sake of his friend.

Four of the gang members were hanging around outside the motel building, standing under the faded neon signs as they smoked cigarettes and littered their buds everywhere on the ground. One of them was also causing quite a nuisance when he showed up with a loud modified bike and constantly kept revving the engine.

After shooting a few pictures from the back of the van, Kyungsoo too ducked beneath the windows. The rear seats had been collapsed and stored away, giving Kyungsoo ample space to move around as he took the pictures.

The van was parked in one of the parking lots across the road from the motel. There were also a few other vehicles left there overnight so it didn’t seem too suspicious that they were there at the time.

Kyungsoo browsed through his camera roll to make sure he had what he needed.

As Junmyeon peeked behind to ask, “Got it?”

“Yeah I have most of them but there’s one guy who won’t seem to look this way. I can only get a glimpse of his side profile,” Kyungsoo grunted lightly.

“Which one is it?” Junmyeon asked, slightly lifting his body from his crouching position to have a look at the display screen of Kyungsoo’s camera.

“It’s the bald guy wearing the wife-beater shirt,” Kyungsoo told, peaking momentarily through the window to see if the man in question had changed position.

“Oh, him,” Junmyeon replied, trying to get up into a sitting position to also have a look when he accidentally hit his arm on the light switch lever, which immediately turned on the headlights of the van right into the direction of the gang members loitering outside the motel.

Kyungsoo saw what happened in horror from the back of the van, while Junmyeon frantically attempted to turn off the lights, only to end up accidentally hitting the horn and activating the windshield wipers in the confusion.

Which, of course, alerted the rowdy gang members of their presence.

Kyungsoo made sure all the doors of the van were locked while Junmyeon managed to finally take control over his own van’s controls.

“Shit,” Junmyeon cursed, pushing Kyungsoo out of the way and jumping from the driver’s seat to join him in the rear when a gang member peered through the windshield to see them inside there.

“They’re in there! They’ve been watching us!” One of the gang members yelled from outside, alerting the others of their presence.

In a moment, the van was being battered with punches and kicks. The gang members attempted to break down the doors windows while shouting and forcing Kyungsoo and Junmyeon out.

They also shone lights from their phones through the windows to have a look at Junmyeon and Kyungsoo, who ducked and covered their heads with their arms to protect their identity.

It would spell trouble for everyone and anyone who knew them if the gang members found out who they were.

“What do we do now?” Kyungsoo hissed, hiding his head in a corner of the van with Junmyeon right beside him.

The van was shaking and wobbling due to the gang member’s assault upon the vehicle. One of them had even climbed to the roof and was jumping up and down on top of it. They were causing quite a ruckus but no one in the area was brave enough to mess with them.

“I don’t know!” Junmyeon trembled, sputtering, “They’ve blocked the back and front. I can’t drive out here with them blocking the way. I can’t just run them over. I’ll go to jail for that!”

“Fuck,” Kyungsoo swore, quickly scrambling through his head for ideas.

“What do we do!?” Junmyeon cried out, “We can’t stay here forever! Should we just call the police from another station? Not all policemen are corrupt, right?”

Almost immediately, an idea struck Kyungsoo’s head. He just remembered that he was wearing the exact same pair of jeans from when Chanyeol had dragged him off the street and onto a plane to Macau.

When Kyungsoo got home after the whole ordeal, he had just tossed the jeans aside and forgot all about it. That was until he ran out of clothes to wear that morning because he had been procrastinating on doing the laundry.

The jeans weren’t what was going to save them. It was the card with Chanyeol’s phone number tucked away and forgotten in the back pocket was what would save them.

Even though the sex memory of him and Chanyeol fucking in that hotel room occasionally replayed in his head, Kyungsoo never contacted Chanyeol after they parted ways that day. It wasn’t because Kyungsoo hated Chanyeol.

Instead, Kyungsoo saw it as a way to distance himself from such trouble and from further implicating innocent people into the mess he had created for himself.

“No police! I got it handled. Wait!” Kyungsoo instructed Junmyeon.

Biting the figurative bullet, Kyungsoo reached behind to his bottom to reach for the crumpled card in his back pocket. With his phone already in his hand, Kyungsoo dialed the number.

It took a few rings before Chanyeol answered the phone. Kyungsoo didn’t have to introduce himself even if this was literally the first time he was calling Chanyeol. Because Chanyeol seemed to know it was him, not that it surprised Kyungsoo either.

Apparently, Chanyeol knew more about Kyungsoo, maybe even more than what Kyungsoo knew about himself.

“Who are you calling?” Junmyeon tried to ask as their van kept rocking sideways and was being stomped down upon.

Kyungsoo didn’t answer Junmyeon's question but he had his answer soon, judging upon the way Kyungsoo’s tone sounded like someone mildly annoyed yet fearful at the same time during the phone call.

“I need help. I’ll have my friend tell you the address right after this. We’re in a white van parked across the Rose Motel. There are four to five men trying to force us to come out. They’ll beat us bad if we leave but we’re trapped here,” Kyungsoo calmly explained over the phone before passing the phone to Junmyeon.

Almost instantly, Junmyeon began reciting the address of their location, doing it twice before hearing a deep voice tell him that help was on the way and to stay on the phone.

“It’s Chanyeol, isn’t it?” Junmyeon questioned, handing the phone back to Kyungsoo.

“Well, just lean back and wait for help. There’s nothing we can do now,” Kyungsoo was way too calm. 

“What if they break the glass before help comes?” Junmyeon worried.

“We’ll just throw stuff back at them,” Kyungsoo suggested, half-serious.

Kyungsoo sighed, leaning his head against the back of the front passenger seat as the glass window beside him was pelted at with something that appeared to be rocks. Kyungsoo had been through worse and a ragtag gang was the least of his worry.

Kyungsoo shivered at the thought of the smirk on Chanyeol’s face when this was all over with and Kyungsoo owed Chanyeol another time for helping him.

Chanyeol was synonymous with trouble but Kyungsoo couldn’t help it when trouble seemed to favor him too.

In less than ten minutes, several cars began pulling up in front of the parked van, all of them being black sedans with heavily tinted glass windows.

By then, the gang had managed to retrieve their baseball bats and were somewhat successful in attempting to break through the glass, as it had begun to creak and falter under the stress.

Junmyeon’s mouth was hung open and he was still in shock when he could see the figure of other men pulling the gang members away from the van. Junmyeon snooped through the glass to see the gang members being pinned down to the ground and had their hands bound behind their backs.

It wasn’t that hard to discern between the gang members and Chanyeol’s men. The gang members wore slippers, mainly t-shirts, and wife-beater singlets and had more casual hairstyles. While Chanyeol’s men wore a polo t-shirt at worst and had proper shoes and more formal hairstyles.

Junmyeon himself had been held hostage by another “professional” crime lord, Baekhyun, but he was still having a hard time himself believing that all of this was real.

In an “I can’t believe what I’m seeing” moment, Junmyeon turned to Kyungsoo to affirm that all of this was happening in reality.

Only to find Kyungsoo eagerly taking pictures of the whole incident for “evidence” to use in leverage against Chanyeol whom he said was prowling after his ass.

Chanyeol himself showed up a bit later in a different car while Sehun took care of the matters at hand, which included threatening the small gang with Chanyeol’s bigger influence for them to cease their hooligan activities.

Only then, Junmyeon opened the rear doors of the van where Kyungsoo had to face the music that was Chanyeol.

Chanyeol looked slightly irritated as if he had just woken up from his sleep when Kyungsoo called him and had then rushed here. He had a suit on as usual but he was missing his tie and his shirt looked rather messily tucked in his pants too, affirming the theory that he probably just woke up.

“How did you end up here? What if you got hurt?” Chanyeol sighed, standing outside the van, running a hand through his hair.

“Uh…I don’t mean to interrupt but this was my fault! Kyungsoo was just trying to help me. I was the one who asked for help because they were disturbing my wife’s business,” Junmyeon defended.

“See! I wasn’t out here purposely looking for trouble,” Kyungsoo added, he and Junmyeon still sitting in the back of the van.

“Oh,” Chanyeol clicked his tongue, looking away from Kyungsoo and then choosing to address Junmyeon instead, “Come out so we can talk about this then. I’ll help you since you’re a friend of Kyungsoo’s.”

Kyungsoo waited at the back of the van, sitting near the doors with his legs swung out of the vehicle as he browsed through the pictures he had been taking.

Chanyeol later returned to Kyungsoo’s side while Junmyeon was giving his bank details to Sehun since Chanyeol had agreed to help pay for the damages to the van.

“I’ve been waiting for your call, you know,” Chanyeol pointed out, leaning against the van.

“Sorry, I lost your number and I only found it in my jeans just now. You really saved me though so thanks for that,” Kyungsoo wasn’t paying full attention to Chanyeol as he kept looking at his camera.

“So you still really don’t want to see me huh?” Chanyeol sounded a bit dejected, “If you wanted to, you’d have made the effort to contact me then. I was beginning to think that you liked being around me.”

Kyungsoo looked up from his camera to look at Chanyeol. Hell, he was beginning to feel bad for Chanyeol at this point. While he was undeniably attracted to Chanyeol, Kyungsoo still didn’t think that they really belonged in the same world.

“I-it’s not that,” Kyungsoo attempted to deny, feeling remorseful for how callous he had been, “I…just didn’t want to get into trouble anymore. I’m sorry, Chanyeol. I do like you but not so much for your career, you feel me?”

Hearing that, Chanyeol smirked and his usual haughty expression returned, “So you do like me, after all. I’m sure I’ve left somewhat of an impression on you after our night together.”

Feeling that he had been baited into the confession, Kyungsoo began to flush and turned away from Chanyeol.

While he was distracted, Chanyeol took the opportunity to snatch away Kyungsoo’s camera on his lap.

“What!?” Kyungsoo jerked, surprised at Chanyeol’s action.

Chanyeol smiled to himself, going through the camera roll to see various pictures of himself and his men being taken. To him, Kyungsoo was way too predictable.

“I’ll hold onto this for a while. I’ll return it to you when I’m done with it as usual,” Chanyeol casually mentioned, lifting the camera high up above his head.

“I need that for my job!” Kyungsoo retaliated, attempting to jump up and reach for the camera out of his reach.

“Well, you can come and get it back from me at my place or wait for three to five business days. I’ll text you an address,” Chanyeol teased.

Chanyeol then swiftly went in for a kiss on the corner of Kyungsoo’s lips before chuckling to himself and walking away back to his car, with the camera in hand.

Kyungsoo was still too taken aback to chase after Chanyeol to run after his camera. It was just a brief and quick kiss not even on his lips but Kyungsoo felt his face burning and flushing for a while after that.

Kyungsoo cupped a hand to the lower half of his face to hide from uncontrollably smiling. He could no longer deny that he did in fact liked Chanyeol but that he also enjoyed this entire charade going on between the both of them. Where Kyungsoo pretended to not want to be around Chanyeol while he made efforts to “force” Kyungsoo to see him.

**

Kyungsoo waited exactly five business days for Chanyeol to return his camera. While Kyungsoo no longer needed the pictures to incriminate the gang as they had now left the area after Chanyeol’s threats, he still needed it for his work. Kyungsoo had a few other cameras but his best one was the one Chanyeol had taken with him.

But no package and no one came to send it to him either. Kyungsoo almost had half the mind to call Chanyeol but his stubborn self decided against it.

Kyungsoo assumed that maybe the postal delivery was just late and waited one more day.

On the sixth business day later, Kyungsoo went home from work to find an even horrific scene waiting for him. His entire apartment had been emptied out. As he was renting the apartment, it had come with furniture and only that was left.

Kyungsoo’s first thought was that he had been robbed. He was a bit late on last month’s rent so maybe his landlord had decided to evict him, although he never received a warning that he would be evicted.

Kyungsoo had already found his landlord in his contacts list and was about to hit the dial button when he noticed the picture taped to the door of the fridge.

It was a picture of Chanyeol smiling and pointing towards the camera. On it, scribbled in marker, Chanyeol wrote, “Took this picture with your camera. Come and get it with all your stuff. You still have my address and number, don’t you?”

This is harassment, Kyungsoo thought to himself. But even if he thought so, another part deep inside of him was churning with excitement at getting to play this chasing game with Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo decided against calling his landlord and instead booked a ride to the address Chanyeol had texted him last week.

Less than an hour later, Kyungsoo arrived at Chanyeol’s apartment building in an upper-class residential area where properties were priced northwards of a few billion won.

Even the ride-share driver who sent Kyungsoo there seemed to give him a judgemental look for wanting to be sent to such a location when Kyungsoo looked so out of place there in his plain black hoodie and bargain rack jeans.

At the lobby, security was tight and Kyungsoo had to wait for the guard at the reception area to confirm with Chanyeol over the intercom that he was a guest before being allowed to proceed.

Only then, Kyungsoo was allowed up to the second-highest floor of the building with the guard even following him up the elevator. Definitely, a place with such a level of security was suitable for someone who meddled in the kind of business Chanyeol dealt with.

Kyungsoo found Chanyeol’s unit and before he could even muster up the courage to ring the doorbell, the door had swung open and Chanyeol in all of his over 6 feet tall glory stood there in his bathrobe.

From the looks of it, he had just gotten out of the shower. His damp hair was slicked back and the front bow of his bathrobe was rather loose, exposing his toned chest.

Kyungsoo swore he could see water droplets running down Chanyeol’s bare chest, unconsciously licking his lips at the sight.

“Like what you see?” Chanyeol smugly exclaimed.

“Who said I was looking!?” Kyungsoo feigned ignorance, promptly looking away before he did anything else out of his control, “I just came here for my stuff. You said you’d return my camera but it’s been longer than promised and now you’ve taken everything I own. I would like all of it returned to me, please.”

“Well, be my guest. It’s inside. Come in and take it for yourself,” Chanyeol gestured, stepping out of the way and letting Kyungsoo inside to his spacious apartment.

Kyungsoo was wary of stepping into the lion’s den and side-eyed Chanyeol a good few times before sucking it up, knowing he didn’t really have a choice before taking his shoes off at the entrance and stepping inside.

Kyungsoo was actually pleasantly surprised to find out that Chanyeol’s apartment had a rather homely feel towards it. It looked as if a family could comfortably settle down here and call it home, far from what Kyungsoo had expected of someone like Chanyeol. 

Chanyeol showed Kyungsoo to a bedroom, opening the door for Kyungsoo to enter. Kyungsoo was relieved and heaved a sigh of ease to find all his stuff in several boxes throughout the bedroom.

Kyungsoo even made sure to sift through some of the boxes to really confirm that it was his stuff in there. While Chanyeol waited in the doorway with his arms folded over his chest.

“But where’s my camera?” Kyungsoo asked, looking around through the boxes, rather surprised that Chanyeol had taken everything he had and then stored it in that fully furnished spare bedroom.

Chanyeol’s face lit up at the mention as if he had been waiting for Kyungsoo to ask the question the entire time. “Oh, that’s in my room. You’ll just have to go there to get it. Don’t worry, you’ll be spending a lot of time here now. You’ll be getting it very soon.”

Just then, a realization hit Kyungsoo and he really had to ask to have a clue at what was going on. Skeptically, Kyungsoo asked, “Chanyeol, why do you have all of my stuff?”

“Ah, about that,” Chanyeol responded, “I bought out your entire lease twice more than it was worth. Your landlord was so eager to sell off the remaining months of rent payment you had on the lease that he didn’t even ask twice about why I did so. I suppose you’re better off not renting from a landlord who doesn’t seem to care about his tenant’s safety. I thought I seemed suspicious enough when I made the deal. You can really see the low side of people when material wealth is involved, don’t you?”

Kyungsoo was still standing in the middle of the room with a look of astonishment on his face. He had a thought in his head but it still wasn’t verified until he heard Chanyeol say it out loud.

“So yeah, since you keep putting yourself into trouble, I decided to extend you a favor by having you move in with me. Besides, who knows when Baekhyun will escape from Yixing and come back to look for us. So I need to keep you around me always. Therefore, this is your room now but, of course, you can come into my room if you want,” Chanyeol explained with a smile.

Kyungsoo sighed, shrugging his shoulders, “I suppose I have no choice then. Well, I should go _look_ for my camera in your room then.”

While Kyungsoo appeared to be bothered by it, deep down he actually enjoyed it a lot.

This was just the beginning of Kyungsoo and Chanyeol’s sometimes awkward, rather tumultuous but intensely passionate relationship with each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hajinnie)   
>  [CC](https://curiouscat.me/hajinnie)


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